Redemption: Come What May
by Xenos394
Summary: The 1st part of my personal take on the Mass Effect series, this story focuses on Shepard's origins and how he got to where he was when the games started. Contains some minor Original Characters, but mostly centred around Shepard. See inside for greater detail/disclaimer.
1. What's the Worst that Could Happen?

******Disclaimer:** I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: Hello readers, this is the first chapter of the Redemption saga, my take on Commander Shepard's life. This first book covers how he became the soldier he was at the beginning of Mass Effect 1, while the three subsequent books (if I ever actually finish them) will cover the events of the trilogy it self.**

**My aim with this story is to create a potential example of how the game might have turned out if they weren't limited by gameplay mechanics and budgets. As such, I have stuck as close to cannon as possible in a broad sense and with regards to the technology shown, but the events of many combat sequences and missions will be altered to be more logical rather than 'fun' to play through. As a result, the events of ME1 are reasonably similar, but the events of ME3 may have noticeable changes away from the cannon story (no the ending isn't one of them, at least not substantially). But this is all in the future and largely irrelevant for the time being.**

**Come What May is the story of Shepard's origins, how he became an N7 and Spectre candidate, his early life, etc. There's rather little information to go on, so I've kept as close to cannon as possible while writing this while adding in things that, while not included in cannon, I believe could exist in the Mass Effect Universe.**

**I will detain you no longer with this Author's Note if you still wish to read this story, please enjoy. /AN]**

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**Redemption: Come What May...**

**Chapter 1: "What's the Worst that Could Happen?"**

**Systems Alliance Cruiser SSV ****_Wellington_**** (September 25, 2157, 0430 Hours, Ship Time):**

"What the hell just happened Juarez?" Shepard asked over the comm. She'd been at the ops station in the CIC during the second shift when she felt the ship drop out of FTL. They still had another 7 hours until they reached their destination so if they had stopped then there must have been a reason and the string of expletives coming from the bridge indicated that it was _not_ an intentional stop.  
"I don't know lieutenant, the core just went offline; the techs must have broken something again." The pilot replied, the irritation in his voice clear.  
"I'm on my way down to engineering, alert the captain." she said before standing up and signalling a junior officer to take over her position. She strode quickly towards the elevator and selected the engineering deck. As the XO of the _Wellington_ it was her job to fix any problems that cropped up while the Captain was off duty, and she had always believed in a 'lead from the front' methodology. Besides, she had previously trained as an engineer so she reasoned she may be of some use.  
'What's the worst that could happen' she thought to herself.

* * *

Chaos greeted her as she stepped off the elevator, however it was chaos of a uniquely military kind. Engineers rushed around the core, patching coolant conduits or attempting to solder loose wiring. Everyone moved with a purpose and in the middle of it all stood Chief Engineer O'Hanlon scanning through read-outs and performance logs from the core as they scrolled across his data pad's display, coordinating the hive of activity around him. Behind the main engineering room lay the _Wellington's_ massive Element Zero core, which, among other things, regulated the ship's mass, allowing it to maintain FTL flight. The core, usually humming from the vibrations that resulted from the passage of a current through it, was silent and still, a stark contrast to the activity surrounding it.  
"What's going on O'Hanlon?" Shepard asked as she approached him "Why is the core offline?"  
"I don't know Lt. We're trying to figure it out now" O'Hanlon replied, brows knotted in thought "One minute, everything's normal then the power shuts off and the core stalls; I can't explain it. I've got engineers trying to re-establish the power flow so we can get the core back online and re-establish our kinetic barriers. A lone Alliance warship without shields out in the Traverse may be considered too tempting a target to pass up for some groups. Our patrol likely won't notice that we dropped out until they arrive at their destination."  
"Agreed, do whatever you have to to get the barriers back up. Let me know if there's anything that I can help with." Shepard agreed, nodding at his rather astute tactical observation. A ship with no kinetic barriers or FTL capabilities would be a sitting duck by most standards, and that was not something that she wanted to be while on patrol in the Attican traverse. The Traverse is a volatile region of space bordering the Terminus Systems. While it is technically under Council protection, that doesn't stop the occasional pirate raid or mercenary group from causing trouble. The Terminus Systems are comprised of the territories of races and groups that don't recognise the Citadel Council or its laws. As such, it is a haven for mercenary groups, the black market, the slave trade and piracy, among other criminal enterprises, and that makes it a very dangerous region of space to be around if you can't protect yourself; and being this close was cutting it a little fine. Shepard was returning to the elevator when the core hummed to life. A couple of cheers went up from the engineers around the room and a look of relief spread across O'Hanlon's face. That look was quickly washed away though when the sound coming from the core started to change in frequency, sounding more like a keening wail than the usual deep hum. Shepard and O'Hanlon locked eyes and their faces drained of colour. They both knew what that sound meant. Core Overload. Not good.

* * *

"I need all non-essential staff out of here _now_!" Shepard shouted, attempting to raise her voice above the sound of the Drive Core. "O'Hanlon, with me, we've got to try to stabilise the core! Pike, alert the captain, tell him that we have a possible Core Overload and that myself and O'Hanlon are attempting to fix it, but that I recommend he orders all non-essential crew to the life pods just in case."  
"Y-Yes ma'am" Came the reply after a brief double take at what she had just heard. Petty Officer Pike snapped off a quick salute to her XO then scurried towards the elevator.  
As the crew in engineering made their way towards the exits in a rapid, if somewhat confused, fashion, O'Hanlon and Shepard went to work attempting to stabilise the core. The core itself began to pulsate, gaining mass then losing it in quick succession. The tidal stresses involved put immense strain on the core's structure, resulting in micro fissures beginning to snake their way across its surface and from these fissures came aerosol sized particles of Element Zero. These minute particles spread across the engine room, flung outwards by the shifting gravitational field around the core.  
Klaxons began to blare throughout the ship as the captain ordered all hands to the life-pods. In engineering, the calm voice of the ships VI also sounded, alerting Shepard and O'Hanlon that the room had been contaminated with Element Zero. O'Hanlon didn't seem to notice as he worked feverishly at a nearby console, attempting to re-direct the charge flowing into the core. Shepard however did notice and was struck by a sudden pang of fear, but not for herself…  
"Hannah!" O'Hanlon shouted, trying to make his voice heard above the sirens and the core "I need you to eject the fuel lines that feed the reactor; we need to stop power from reaching the core."  
"That will leave us Dead in the Water!" She wasn't sure if he had actually heard her over the noise, but he seemed to understand her objection.  
"We don't have a choice, either we cut the power or the core overloads and destroys the ship. Being vulnerable beats being dead in my book."  
"Okay, cutting fuel lines…Now!" The cacophony of noise coming from the core ceased almost immediately as lights and haptic interfaces across the ship fell dark. Within seconds emergency backup power had kicked in and the ship was bathed in a dull orange-red glow. The central core of the ship stopped spinning, resulting in a loss of gravity through much of the ship, including engineering. Shepard and O'Hanlon grabbed onto hand rungs sunk into the wall for exactly this kind of eventuality and she keyed her radio to let the captain know what had happened as she worked her way towards the deck.

* * *

**Systems Alliance Cruiser SSV ****_Wellington_**** (September 27, 2157, 0945 Hours, Ship Time):**

Hannah raised her head as she heard footsteps in the med-bay, approaching her cubicle. She had been confined to a bed for a week due to Element Zero exposure and in that time the crew had worked hard to get the _Wellington_ up and running again, restoring power and the core to full functionality before getting underway once more in only two days once their escorts found them again. Shepard had spent her week cursing her inability to help them. O'Hanlon had been allowed to leave three days prior, but she was on sick leave for an 'indefinite period of time until the Chief Medical Officer believes she can return to duty' as the official notice had put it. Hers were rather special circumstances, after all.  
"Good morning Hannah, how are you feeling today?" The Doctor stationed aboard the _Wellington _asked good-naturedly. It was a routine that Shepard had grown quite used to in her time 'on leave' as it were.  
"_I_ feel fine Doc, I just want to know if…" She trailed off, words catching in her mouth. If something was wrong then she might never forgive herself; she wasn't even sure how her husband would react.  
"Well I have good news for you. Scans show absolutely no abnormality in the foetus and growth appears to be proceeding normally. Your child should be fine." He finished, with a sincere smile tugging at the edges of his lips.  
A wave of relief hit Hannah, she felt her muscles relax and she exhaled deeply, releasing a subconsciously held breath. "Thank you doctor, that's great news. I was starting to get a little worried there." She said with more than a hint of irony.  
"I believe you'll also be happy to hear that you may return to your duties whenever you feel fit, though I would strongly recommend some good meals and lots of rest for at least the next couple of days, to help you fully regain your strength. You were lucky to only get off with only slight burns and a mild case of radiation poisoning."  
"Of course doctor, though you have tasted the food they serve on this ship right?"

The doctor chuckled as he considered how accurate her assessment of the food was. "Very well, nutritionally balanced meals then." He made to leave her cubicle to tend to his other patients, but turned towards her as he reached the curtain that separated her room from the med-bay. "Just one more thing, some studies have begun linking In-Utero exposure to Element Zero and the development of biotic abilities. We still don't know much about this phenomenon but it may be something to keep in mind." And with a quick nod he left.  
Shepard began to ready the few personal items she had in her cubicle in preparation for returning to normal duty. She was relieved that everything appeared to be normal with the child and that she was ready to go back to work, but a little voice in the back of her mind kept wondering if her child might develop biotic abilities, and if it did, then what would that mean for their family.

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Barton Medical Clinic (January 18, 2159, 1320 Hours, Station Time):**

"Drake and Hannah Shepard, please continue down the corridor to Room C-8; Doctor Han has the test results for you to review." The synthesised voice of the clinic's VI came over the PA in the waiting room. Humans were still experimenting with VI technology, and they were decades behind the other Citadel species. However, most of the stations VI's were already installed before contact was made with the galactic community two years ago. It would take a couple more years before it was finished completely but it was already home to 8 000 permanent residents and was a popular location with ship captains for shore leave; the shipyards allowed any ships, even the massive Dreadnoughts, to be refitted and repaired. As an added bonus, it was only one relay jump away from Earth. Though colonisation of other worlds had begun almost as soon as Humanity had found suitable candidates, Terra Nova, Demeter and Eden Prime most notably, the vast majority of humans still live on Earth and that included the families of the majority of Alliance personnel.

Hannah glanced nervously at Drake, who squeezed her hand gently. "Don't worry, whatever happens, we'll still be okay, John will still be okay." Drake said softly, locking eyes with his wife "Come on, we shouldn't keep the good doctor waiting now should we?" he said with a grin and stood up. Hand in hand they walked down the corridor until they came to room C-8.  
"Mr and Mrs Shepard, please come in and take a seat" Doctor Han said with a practiced ease. It never gets any easier to tell parents that something is wrong with their child, but after 15 years as a paediatrician he had cultivated a reassuring manner that seemed to help the parents. "The biopsy results came back and I am very happy to tell you that the growths in John's nervous system are definitely not cancerous and appear to be utterly benign."  
Drake let out a sigh of relief, but Hannah knew something was still wrong. "But…" Hannah asked expectantly, gesturing for him to continue. She was in no mood to be jerked around by the doctor; she just wanted to know if there was anything wrong with John.  
Somewhat surprised by the woman's bluntness, Han bowed his head slightly and continued. "But the tests also confirmed that they are Eezo nodules, caused by your exposure to Element Zero during the incident on the _Wellington_ 16 months ago. It means that John may develop Biotic capabilities." He let what he had just said hang in the air for a bit, allowing the information to sink in. "The Alliance is very interested in children with Biotic potential at the moment, it was only last year that we finally worked out that humans even had biotic potential. The higher ups believe that we need to study human biotics in order to effectively compete with other races like the Asari, or the Turians." His voice took on a slight edge as he mentioned the name of the first alien species that humanity made contact with, which resulted in a rather violent conflict that nearly spiralled into all out war. "Still, I am bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, so it's up to you if you let the Alliance know. And even if you do, they would still have to get your consent to use him in… whatever it is they're doing."  
Conflict engulfed Hannah. More than anything she wanted to stay with John and let him grow up and have a normal childhood. She had no idea what would happen if the Alliance decided they needed to conduct research on him, but she was quite certain that he would _not_ have a normal childhood. On the other hand, she was an officer of the Alliance Military, if her superiors believed that they needed to study biotic potential in humans, then who was she to say no. She looked over at Drake and she could see the same turmoil in his eyes, as a marine Service Chief, he felt the same conflict of family or duty.  
Dr Han continued "John has a very limited number of the nodules, and current research suggests that there is a link to the number of nodules and an individual's biotic capabilities. You do not need to worry about him potentially harming anyone in a fit of rage or anything; all biotics need special amplifiers to effectively utilize the ability, even the Asari are quite weak without amplifiers, and their entire race is naturally biotic. Believe me, he will not be a danger to anyone and his biotic potential could very well be minute; I just thought you should have all of the facts. I'll leave you two alone for awhile; just ask the VI if you require assistance." He nodded slightly to them then left the room, door sliding shut after he was through. 'I hate doing this.' he thought to himself 'Perhaps I should take a vacation, maybe somewhere sunny.'

Hannah and Drake sat there in silence for the better part of a minute, neither knowing precisely what to say. It was Drake that spoke first.  
"We both knew this was a possibility, if nothing else we should be thankful that it wasn't something worse-"  
"Worse! What could be worse than this?!" Hannah shouted, emotions finally boiling over. She stood up and began to pace while continuing her outpouring of grief. "John isn't even a year old and we already have to decide his fate! It's not fair! It's not fair for us and it's _definitely _not fair for him! And all because I tried to play the hero." She slumped back into her chair, the tension she had felt leading up to this point, all of the stress and anxiety, flowing out as she began to cry quietly, in as dignified manner as she could.  
For his part, Drake simply watched and listened; relieved that she was finally releasing the burden she had been carrying for so long. He got off his chair and knelt down next to her, placing a hand on her knee.

"You know what's not fair? You blaming yourself for this. You didn't _try_ to play the hero, you _were_ the hero. You helped save everyone aboard the _Wellington._ I know this isn't an easy decision, but I will stand by you, whatever choice you make. You're my wife, and I made a couple of promises that I plan on keeping. I'm also not stupid enough to go against my superior officer's wishes; I have a career to think about." He said with a grin. His last comment got a derisive snort from Hannah "Please, you follow orders about as well as John walks at the moment." After another brief period of silence, she locked eyes with him. "Thank you, for standing by me. I just feel like this is my fault, that I put us in this position, that it isn't fair on you, I –"  
"Never think that, _ever_. This is _not_ your fault." Drake interrupted with surprising forcefulness, "If you had of stepped back and tried to save your own skin instead of saving the ship and going so far above your duty to help everyone else, then you wouldn't have been the woman I fell in love with. I choose to be at your side whatever happens, not because it would be easy, but because it would be worth it. Sure this is a bad situation, but what would you be thinking now if you had of let someone else do the job you did? What if the core had of overloaded and destroyed the ship? You made the right choice, but sometimes the right choice doesn't get the perfect happy ending."  
"You're pretty eloquent when you want to be, for a jarhead." She sighed and sat up straight, wiping away the remaining trail of tears that had wound its way down across her cheek. "Okay, we don't tell the Alliance. John stays with us, he gets to live a normal life; no one ever needs to know that he could be a biotic. He can just have a normal life, with us. Is that alright, with you?"  
Drake looked at her unable to keep the smile of his face; he leaned over her and hugged her tightly. "Of course it is, it's perfect." His voice began to crack and eyes watered. They cried and laughed, alternating between the two states as they embraced again.

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**[AN: There's the first chapter folks, please do tell me what you think, if it's worth continuing, et cetera, et cetera.**

**I will aim to update weekly, but there may be some variability within that.**

**Thanks for taking the time to read. /AN]**


	2. And So it Begins

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: Hello to those of you who are taking the time to read this. So the last chapter was clearly somewhat uninspiring, receiving a full 20 unique views over the course of the week, fifteen of which were on the first day. Still, I will finish posting this story and hope that it might become more popular as time goes by. **

**Without further ado, here is Chapter 2. /AN]**

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**Arcturus Station, Systems Alliance Primary Education Facility Wing D (November 7, 2167, 1730 Hours, Station Time):**

Like many things that the Systems Alliance had named in its early days, Arcturus Station's Public School was not gifted with an imaginative name and as a result it was quickly renamed by the pupils who attended it. The SAPEF had become APE, which the kids quickly translated to Monkey and within six months the school was almost universally recognised as 'The Monkey House', which, considering the remarkably large (artificial) park and Jungle Gym present at its centre, wasn't entirely inaccurate.

Originally, Arcturus Station had been planned as a centralised Command/Control Station for the Alliance, housing the Parliament, shipyards and most of its military and intelligence services. As such, the need for a school hadn't been factored in. But with the sudden influx of men and women after First Contact and the Alliance's rather relaxed position on Marriage between members of the service, it found there was a significant demand for children's education. The result was one of the most modern schools in Citadel Space (albeit it with one of the most uninspiring official names in Council Space). It was here that the first full generation of human 'Spacers', those who have lived their whole lives in space, grew up and went to school; one John Shepard included.

"Ah, Mr and Mrs Shepard, please come in and take a seat. I trust your most recent tour went well Hannah?" John's teacher ushered them inside the brightly coloured classroom, its walls adorned by the children's artistic attempts and streamers from a recent party.

"All quiet on the Western Front as usual Sonia. How has the class been?" Hannah replied cheerfully. Sonia Hartmeyer had been John's teacher for the past four years and so the Shepard's had got to know her quite well. She was in fact a well known expert in cross-cultural studies and psychological development but had taken a teaching position because, as she said, she 'just loved children'.

"The class has been wonderful… mostly; you know how young children can be sometimes. All of the children are so excited for the holidays, as I'm sure you can see." She said as she gestured grandly towards the various scribbles and crayon drawings hung up around the room.

"It looks like you've got a couple of Picasso's in your class and maybe even a Van Gough or two." Drake said with his trademark smirk gracing his lips as he carefully lowered his solid frame into the small chair.

"And while I regret to inform you that John is not among those, he certainly has skills in other areas." Sonia replied with her own smirk, not missing a beat. "He's been excelling in physical activities and he has a knack for logic problems and lateral thinking, always puzzling over some new riddle or optical illusion during free time. He does appear to be a bit isolated from his peers at times, but I think that has more to do with his rapid mental development and he certainly isn't being bullied; his height sees to that."

'She's right,' Hannah thought to herself, 'for whatever reason John's nearly 10cm taller than the next tallest child in the class, He basically towers over the rest of his class.'

"There is one behavioural point I want to bring to your attention though; John doesn't react well when things are taken out of his control. If he has a plan set out and one of the other kids does something against that plan, he will either retreat from the others and withdraw into himself, or he will… 'erupt', for want of a better term. I think it's largely tied to his remarkably advanced mental development compared to his peers and as such it should resolve itself in time, but I would suggest you keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't develop into a fixation on control or a source of significant anxiety for him, particularly in the teenage years." Sonia explained, slipping into the familiar role of developmental advisor that had been her longest standing job before entering academia.

Both Hannah and Drake nodded carefully as the processed this behaviour, cross-referencing for similar behaviour they had seen and storing it away for later.

"What about his grades?" Drake asked, curious as ever about his son's academic potential.

"The same as usual, nothing overly spectacular, but he does appear to be becoming more and more bored with what he's being taught. It's not affecting his work in any obvious way, but I suspect he could be doing much better if he really wanted to, not that it would actually impact anything. But it does lead us on to my main point that I wanted to discuss with you; his IQ result."

Drake and Hannah exchanged a quick glance before turning their full attention back to Sonia. IQ tests were a compulsory part of the Systems Alliance's schooling program and they began in their fourth year and carried on until their ninth, in an effort to plot any possible effects that the unique 'Spacer' lifestyle might have on the students. It was also used to shortlist possible candidates for officer positions in the Military once they had finished school.

"He scored very highly, 138 to be precise. It's just shy of Genius level and puts him in the top tenth of a percentile of the human population. This level of intelligence would explain much of his behaviour and it means he will have a lot of potential when he reaches the senior education system; in fact I'd almost guarantee that he'll be offered the chance to study on board a ship with you on your tours of duty. In the mean time, I would encourage the self-guided aspect of his learning; let him research things on the extranet and try different skills and hobbies until he finds something that really grabs his attention."

Drake smiled happily at the revelation while Hannah nodded in surprise as she processed her son's intellectual potential; it certainly explained his insatiable appetite for knowledge. She'd have to set up a (well filtered) Extranet account for him over the holidays.

"Well, now that the official stuff is out of the way I've got half an hour until my next appointment, so how about we catch up over coffee and you can ask me any more questions you might have once I have some caffeine in my system again?" Sonia asked happily, already knowing what the answer would be.

**Systems Alliance Carrier SSV ****_Einstein_**** (February 3, 2170, 0900 Hours, Ship Time):**

John was fascinated by the _Einstein_, he'd never been on such a huge ship! He'd seen Dreadnoughts and Carriers before when they docked at Arcturus, but he'd never been inside one and now he was going to live on one for the next 18 months!

His Mom was one of two XO's onboard, (a ship this massive required an enormous crew to run it, which required two Executive Officers plus the Commanding Officer to manage all of the shifts effectively) and his Dad would be joining the Marine platoon onboard in a couple of weeks; he couldn't wait to have his whole family around for a change.

At the moment, he and the dozen other kids whose families were also stationed on the kilometre long ship were being given a tour; being told where they could go and where they couldn't, a rundown of evacuation procedures, shift changes, how to get things from the mess halls and what was expected from their studies. Okay, so overall it wasn't the most fascinating tour, but John didn't care, he was going to be living on an active warship! A Carrier! For the next 18 months! It was so cool!

After the rather long tour, he returned to his mom's cabin to make sure all his stuff was ready for school tomorrow. All things considered, it wasn't really school like he remembered from Arcturus, there were way fewer kids and they didn't have a proper teacher, not like Miss Hartmeyer, but they still got to learn stuff and they even got to choose what they studied some times; the teacher had called it 'self-guided learning'.

Flicking on his datapad, John opened up the book they were going to be studying in history in a couple of weeks. Herodotus' _The Histories_ was a fascinating book, if a bit hard to understand at points; once you stripped away the mysticism and less relevant tangents you had a very solid history of the Greco-Persian Wars, though he wished there was more detail about the military strategy used in the battles. Settling into his small bed, he quickly engrossed himself with his reading.

A month later and John had mostly settled in to life onboard a starship. He still missed the parks and nature domes that featured so strongly on Arcturus but the extra freedom and cool stuff to learn about made up for it. And the other kids were really cool too; they were just as interested in the ship as he was. He was one of the youngest on board at the moment, being just shy of twelve, but all except for the oldest kids were taught by the same teacher, in the same room, so he got to know the eight other kids around his age quite well.

It was free time at the moment and he was in the middle of a four player Real Time Strategy game based on World War Two back on Earth during the mid 20th Century. He had challenged three of his friends, Hayden, Natalie and Xu, to a 3v1 game. Hayden and Xu were both pretty good players in their own right but Natalie was the real challenge. She was practically a chess prodigy and she was unbeaten within their class and even the adults who had challenged her. She could read her opponents brilliantly and she knew every possible move set, but that only added to the fact that she was a really good at thinking up strategies and executing them. John had never really liked chess, it was too static for him. He could still play reasonably well, but he didn't like how limited his options were with moves or units. He much preferred the dynamic strategy games, like the one he was playing now. He loved the way he could manipulate the battlefield and his units own strengths and weaknesses compared to his opponent's. As a result, he had wiped Hayden out twenty minutes into the two hour game, by eliminating his Command/Control units with an APC assisted Commando strike that blitzed passed his sporadic defences, and he was just now polishing off the last of Xu's units and infrastructure after dissecting his attempt at a flanking manoeuvre and then driving a tank column up to his base. All that he had to do now was eliminate Natalie.

She had expected her team mates would fall, so she had built up her base defence heavily and focused on providing indirect fire-support for Hayden and Xu's assaults, while preparing her units for a counter attack when John made his move. What she hadn't anticipated was that John had abandoned his starting base and rigged it with explosives as he set up his actual base in a far more remote spot. He had arranged most of his units in a standard defensive pattern around the original base and that really should have told his opponents that he was up to something, but they didn't pick up on the strangely normal tactics.

Natalie had been planning on launching a strike against his base when he made his first major offensive, but since his first attack on Hayden's base had consisted of no more than two APC's filled with infantry, she didn't risk an attack when most of his units were still defending what she thought was his base. When he moved his 'defenders' up to support his tank column assault on Xu's position, she immediately seized the chance and rushed her own tank formation up to his base, with a trio of heavy bombers ready to level any particularly dangerous defences he might have set up. Imagine her surprise when her units swept into his base to find no resistance and little in the way of infrastructure.

John smiled to himself as he watched Natalie send her units right into his carefully prepared trap. Little did she know, he had left recon units along the roads to his base and he was glad to see that she had acted exactly as he had expected. Even now she was spreading her units out through his empty base, looking for any sign of his location. The other thing she didn't know, was that his infantry units that had been defending the base hadn't left to support the tank column (he had other units for that), they had left to clear the blast zone.

Natalie yelped in shock as she watched 90% of her combat units disappear in a grand sequence of explosions that ripped through John's false base, taking her units with them. She then stared in horror as an infantry force three times the size of her remaining troops opened fire from concealed positions at her rear and put down the last of her soldiers. Her entire force that she had spent two hours building up and preparing for this assault, had just been eradicated in under ten seconds. Without thinking, she ordered her bombers to carpet bomb the forest where John's ambush units had been, only to see all three of her bombers intercepted by fighters and ground based mobile AA before they had gotten more than a third of the way across the map. With a sudden jolt she realised her entire base was suddenly lacking mobile defenders; her only consolation being that John's main force was still over by the remains of Xu's base and would take a while to finish mopping up there and reach her position. She waited for ten minutes, requisitioning more units with what little time she had left, but the expected attack didn't come. After fifteen minutes, she had some semblance of an offensive force again but still the attack hadn't come.

"What are you waiting for Johnny, scared a girl will beat you?" She goaded via the in-game chat, hoping to provoke some sort of action from him. Annoyingly, she didn't get the response she expected.

"Nope, I'm waiting…" She waited for the next part to come through, wondering what he was doing, only to jump in fright as the crack of thunder roared through her headset and heavy rain sheeted down across the battlefield.

"… for that. Nice try, Nat."

She gasped in realisation as his plan finally unfurled. With the rain and thunder obscuring her unit's targeting, her carefully positioned ranged fire would be useless; his units could practically walk in under the cover of the rain and be right on top of her defences. Sure enough, artillery shells began to rain down on her base, sending her units into chaos and blowing apart numerous machine gun positions and pill boxes. Infantry, supported by tank fire rapidly moved towards her defensive perimeter. Her remaining units put up a valiant fight, inflicting heavy casualties, but that small hope was lost when the deep humming of plane rotors became audible over the booming thunder. Suddenly the sky above her base was filled with parachutes as paratroopers rained down inside her defensive perimeter, precisely eliminating defensive position after defensive position, allowing the rest of his units to push forward unmolested. The entire battle was over in less than five minutes.

"Good game Nat, your defences were way better than I expected. See you in class tomorrow?"

She was still too surprised to reply, he had planned everything around how he figured she would react and then let the variability of the battlefield sweep him to victory. She hadn't even thought of checking the weather, but he had built his plan around a thunderstorm!

"Nat?"

She had thought this would be a pretty easy game, three on one and all that. Plus he had never managed to beat her at chess.

"Hello? Nat, you okay?"

'I'll have to ask him how he did it at some point, maybe tomorrow.' She thought to herself and she was about to ask exactly that when she saw the string of somewhat worried questions directed at her.

"Yes, I'm fine, sorry, didn't see your chats. Sure, cya tomorrow."

With that, she hastily logged out and climbed into bed, thinking about the game she had just played.

Little did John know, it wasn't only Natalie who had been impressed by his game. He didn't know that every game played on the ship's servers was recorded by the Alliance so it could be monitored. These kids were, after all, among the most likely to go into the military when they grew up, so having an idea of their capabilities at this early age was a huge bonus. And as one analyst settled in to watch another replay of the game, they couldn't help but think that it might have payed off in a big way this time.

**[AN: And there we have it, feedback is greatly appreciated, particularly any constructive criticism.**

**Thanks for reading! /AN]**


	3. Welcome to the Real Galaxy

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: This chapter covers the attack on Mindoir. It's mentioned in a side-quest in ME1 that Spacer Shep was on-board one of the ships that responded to the attack, so here's a quick piece on the fallout from it. It's not particularly huge, because he's still pretty young and I doubt he would be fully processing the nature of the attack for some time, but it's still an important part of his development.**

**I would also like to apologise for the very unfortunate typo in the Summary for this story after I posted the last chapter, this has now been rectified.**

**Once again, thanks for taking the time to read. /AN]**

* * *

**Systems Alliance Carrier SSV ****_Einstein_****, in Orbit around Mindoir (June 16, 2170, 1320 Hours, Ship Time):**

Twelve hours ago, everything in John Shepard's routine life had been turned on its head.

Twelve hours ago, the _Einstein_ and her Battlegroup had been diverted to the human colony of Mindoir after a series of frantic distress signals had been broadcast from the small colony.

The _Einstein_ and her numerous escorts had arrived four hours later to find the colony being swarmed by a sizable force of Terminus System pirates, specifically Batarian Slavers.

Diplomatic Relations with the Batarians had been tense at best when Humanity came onto the Galactic Scene and began to rapidly expand into the Skyllian Verge, a largely unexploited region of the Galactic Arm that happened to include both Earth and Khar'shan, the Batarian's homeworld. In protest the Batarian's closed their embassy on the Citadel and effectively shut themselves off from the rest of the Galaxy.

Ever since, the Batarian Hegemony had been waging a shadow war against the Alliance by sponsoring the illegal acquisition of sentient labour, aka slavery. Slavery was heavily frowned upon in Citadel Space, the Batarians being the only species to maintain the practice due to their rigid caste system that was entrenched into their social and cultural heritage, giving them a loophole to continue the practice. But ever since they had cut ties with the Citadel races they had discovered a thriving slaving community within the Terminus Systems and quickly discovered that humans made great slaves and that human colony's were easy targets.

The same rapid expansion that had so enraged the Batarian Hegemony also meant that only the largest and most important human colonies had any sort of permanent garrison and instead relied on semi-regular naval patrols to discourage pirate incursions. And this technique was becoming less and less successful as more colonies were founded closer and closer to the edge of Council Space where Terminus-based pirate groups often patrolled, looking for easy prey.

Mindoir was not the first and certainly not the last human colony to be hit by Batarian slavers, but history would later record it as being one of the worst.

When the Battlegroup arrived in-system, they immediately demanded the surrender of the Terminus forces and the release of their captives. This order was completely ignored in favour rabbiting to FTL or vainly attempting to buy their forces on the ground time by engaging the outnumbered but substantially better equipped Alliance force.

The Naval battle was quick and decisive; four out-dated Cruisers and a dozen equally antiquated Frigates plus an assortment of fighters and corvettes was simply no match for an organised, state-of-the-art Carrier Battlegroup, with two Heavy Cruisers, one Scout Cruiser and a six Frigate Wolfpack, not to mention the _Einstein _herself and her myriad fighters and interceptors.

Unfortunately, despite their naval superiority, there was little that could be done on the ground. The _Einstein's_ compliment two marine platoons was immediately dispatched to the colony once her fighters had cleared a path, but once there they encountered intense resistance from the largely Batarian force that was slowly withdrawing from the Colony. Because the Slaver's had set up their base in the centre of the colony, it was too risky to use orbital strikes or even fighter-launched precision guided munitions, so it was left to the marines on the ground to secure the colony.

To save time and as revenge for their destroyed fleet, the pirates began to slaughter their captives in the dozens, sparing only those who showed real promise as slaves and were subsequently forcefully and traumatically implanted with neural control chips… without any type of anaesthetic… and using a pressure gun to ram it into their skulls.

Despite their best efforts, the Marines simply couldn't reach the colonists being massacred before their eyes and they incurred heavy casualties in their attempts before the slavers had loaded their 'cargo' onto their remaining shuttles and jumped to FTL as soon as they were able.

Of course, twelve year old John Shepard had no idea about any of this, all he knew was that there had been an attack on a human colony that they were going to go help and that class was cancelled for the foreseeable future.

* * *

Another day later and the reality of the situation had fully sunk in.

About sixty refugees, the only survivors from the Mindoir, were moved aboard the _Einstein_, seeing as it was the largest ship present and the only one equipped to take a large number of extra passengers.

That was sixty people from a colony of one and a half thousand; you didn't need to be a genius to work the horrific human cost of the raid.

John had never seen so much suffering before. Of course he had seen News coverage of natural disasters and the occasional report on a pirate raid; but to see it personally… it was unpleasant to say the least.

The kids had all been diverted to helping care for the refugees, mainly assisting in the med-bay or mess hall and some of the older ones were drafted in to help take care of the surviving kids, particularly the ones who had lost their parents.

He also saw the cost of the raid in his dad. He had been on the ground and whatever he had seen down there wasn't something he was willing to talk about. He put on a smile whenever John was around, but he knew it was fake; his eyes betrayed his inner distress and turmoil. His dad had always been so lively and spontaneous that seeing him like this was almost too much for the younger Shepard to handle.

One day he got up the courage to ask what was wrong.

"You always were perceptive John." Drake chuckled ruefully and tousled his hair, but it all seemed a little forced.

Seeing that his son was still waiting for an answer to his question, he sighed and continued:

"It's not something that I can explain, even your Mother wouldn't quite understand; and frankly I hope neither of you ever do. I guess you could say it's a Marine thing."

"Then why did you become a Marine?" John asked curiously. Surely if something caused you so much pain, you'd stope doing it.

"Because someone has to. Someone has to be there to protect the ones that can't protect themselves. And I have the skills to be a Marine, a good Marine, so it's my duty to take up that position. You're still too young to be thinking about these sought of things though, just know that the Galaxy can be a really ugly and dangerous place at times but there are always people ready to stand against that."

John didn't know what to say, so he nodded his head vigorously in understanding before scurrying back to his room to mull over what his dad had told him.

* * *

**[AN: And there we are, chapter three done. The next chapter will be the last of his pre-military life and will signal being approximately 1/3rd to 1/4 of the way through this story.**

**If at all possible, some feedback would be great. Even if you think this is just a giant waste of space and among the worst pieces of writing you have ever seen, it would still be helpful to no what I can attempt to improve.**

**Thanks again for reading. /AN]**


	4. The Responsibilities of Maturity

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: So I've updated a couple of days early this week, because I finished the piece I needed to write and really wanted to get it posted, still not entirely sure why though...**

**Regardless, the update schedule is still aiming at being weekly, so expect the normal Saturday (for me, not sure about you guys) updates.**

**Anyways, on with the story./AN]**

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Systems Alliance Marine Corps Memorial Ground (May 3, 2174, 0820 Hours, Station Time):**

John could barely contain his emotional turmoil as he approached the sealed coffin with the Systems Alliance Flag draped precisely over it. It was next to three identical coffins, each bearing the names and remains of a fallen marine.

The one he stood in front of had 'Operations Chief Drake Shepard' carefully etched into a golden plaque. His father.

It had been two days since they had received the visit that no military family ever wants to receive. Apparently, his Dad's squad had been investigating reports of a pirate base set up on a small moon in the Hercules System, and sure enough, they had found the base. It appeared to be deserted, and closer inspection revealed it was.

Except for the demolition charges. The _incendiary_ demolition charges.

The blast killed four marines instantly and seriously wounded two more.

Drake Shepard was among the dead.

John reached out to comfort his mum as she quietly approached the metallic cylinder that contained her husband's physical remains. She was wearing her full dress uniform, as befit her rank as Captain, but it was not as crisp as it would normally have been, the pins and medals slightly askew in their mounts; but it was easily overlooked, given the circumstances.

She had kept a careful, stoic nature in public over the last two days, doing her utmost not to let her subordinates see her grief and anger and pain. She even tried to hide it from John, though she wasn't very successful.

But now, as she stood before the coffin of her husband of twenty years, she couldn't keep her emotions bottled up any longer. She began to weep quietly nest to the coffin, Drake's beloved Marine Corps beret clutched tightly in her hands.

John stood and held her, comforting his normally iron-willed mother as she poured out her grief. This continued for five, ten, fifteen minutes and still John stood silently, giving her the support she so desperately needed.

He remembered the words his Dad always spoke to him before he deployed on a new assignment:

_"If anything happens to me John, I need to know you'll take care of your Mum for me. Can you promise me that?"_

Every time, he asked the same question and every time, John gave the same response; _"I promise"_

Only now did he fully appreciate what his father had meant. So he stood, and he waited.

His grieving would come later, but at the moment his Mum needed him, so he would be there for her.

And he would be damned before he broke the last promise he ever made his Dad.

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Systems Alliance Marine Corp Head Office (April 11, 2176, 1415 Hours, Station Time):**

John walked into the Marine Recruitment Office. It was his 18th birthday and his mother had taken leave in order to allow them to celebrate it on Arcturus Station. They had gone to one of the many cafés on the station where John developed a true appreciation for what food should be; good food tastes even better when you've spent the last couple of years living off military cooking. He put it down to the use of fresh ingredients and a chef who actually knows how to cook. After the breakfast they returned to the hotel room they were staying in to open the presents. There were the usual presents from family members, mainly consisting of e-books, vids and credits. There were a number of presents from the crew of the _San Jose_, the cruiser that Hannah currently captained. Most of the crew knew that he intended to join the Marines and their gifts reflected that; A pair of all-weather boots, some waterproof parkas, even an Advanced Combat and Small Unit Tactics handbook with the card simply saying that he 'may as well start reading it now'.

John smiled at the vote of confidence that the gift represented. This handbook was only distributed to officers who were to chosen lead Special Forces teams, which also narrowed down the list of people that it could have come from. His favourite gift from the crew however was one that all of the marines on board had chipped in for and it consisted of a group armour pouches that provided room for extra stim-packs, rations, water, ammo-blocks and medi-gel without compromising armour integrity or adding extra bulk, an 11 inch ceramic and titanium combat knife with a mono-molecular tungsten carbide blade and his name engraved into its hilt along with a correspondingly effective sheath and finally, a standard issue Combat Helmet, designed to work with almost all of the Alliance's armours, with targeting upgrades in the HUD as well as a program that kept track of combat statistics, allowing the user to review them later. Inside the helmet all of the marines had signed their names and the inside of the jaw section was engraved with 'Reconnaissance Marines, 23rd Division'.

The Alliance was always happy for new recruits to bring their own equipment, so long as it was up to specifications, however they did not allow people to bring their own firearms and they were very strict with what armour and weapon modifications were allowed, mainly due to safety concerns; raw recruits running around with heavy rifles upgraded with scram-rails was a recipe for disaster. The crew were well aware of this and managed to provide John with a suite of gear that would not break any regulations but functioned better than the basic gear he would have otherwise been issued. Just as importantly, it wasn't anything flashy or expensive, just rather standard gear that had been given the 'personal touch' by his friends, experienced in what was required to be a marine.

Now he stood at the gateway to joining their ranks. He walked through the door and up to the Lieutenant manning the recruitment desk.  
Shepard kept running over what he would say in his head, he did, after all, want to make a good first impression. He reached the desk and stood up as straight as his spine would allow. "Sir, I would like to enlist for Officer Candidacy in the Systems Alliance Marine Corp."

The Lieutenant on the other side of the desk cocked his head to the side slightly as he appraised the surprisingly eager rookie in front of him. "Relax boy, you're not a marine yet. You want to be an Officer huh? Then let's see your papers." He waited expectantly while John quickly handed over the folder containing his Birth Certificate, Academic Records and Letters of Recommendation. "Okay, so you are John Shepard, son of Operations Chief Drake Shepard, now deceased, and Lieutenant Commander Hannah Shepard, formerly Hannah Schofield, born on the 11th of April 2158?"

Shepard nodded in affirmation and waited as the data was inputted into the system and verified.

After logging the last of the information into the system, he scanned over the remaining documents. After a few minutes (which felt much longer to John) he placed the documents down and looked back at John. "Your academic results are impressive, and your physical results and aptitude scores are certainly high enough. They alone would likely get you admittance, but the fact that you've got two divisions of Marines to vouch for you as well? That's impressive; they must really see something in you." The Lieutenant looked John up and down once more, then extended his hand. "Welcome to the Marines kid."

* * *

**[AN: And here ends John Shepard's pre-military life. Every chapter after this will detail some aspect of his military life up until the beginning of ME1.**

**The next two/three chapters (approx. 10 000 words) will cover his fateful mission on Akuze. I'm sure you're mostly aware of how well ****_that_**** one turned out :/**

**Thanks again for taking the time to read this story and notes.**

**Until next time... /AN]**


	5. The Death of Innocence: Part 1

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: This Chapter is the first of three dealing with the my interpretation of the infamous events of Akuze from the Sole Survivor Background. One thing I really wanted to do was make it seem like an actual military operation, with a degree of organisation and the like, so any feedback in relation to that would be hugely helpful.**

**Another note, as of the next chapter, I'll probably raise the Rating to M, because Thresher Maw's can be somewhat violent...**

**I hope you enjoy the chapter./AN]**

* * *

**Systems Alliance Heavy Frigate SSV ****_Gallipoli_****, Brahe System (October 18, 2177, 0810 hours, Colony Time):**

"Pick up the pace up marines, we'll be entering Akuze's orbit in 5 minutes! Get your gear stowed and your weapons locked, Alpha team takes the shuttle down once we're in orbit. The _Gallipoli_ will go groundside 15 minutes after that, then you move!" Commander Mitchell Hynes surveyed the Hangar Deck, watching as the fifty marines under his command prepped for landing; variously checking and securing their weapons, loading their pack with rations, medi-gel and weapon mods, sealing their hard suits and checking systems and barrier functionality. They were ready to go.

* * *

Hynes stepped into the shuttle to find Alpha team already there. They were ten of the most senior men and women in the platoon. Half of them held an N4 rating or higher and all had seen a lot of combat. Hynes was the only N7 in the group and had quickly been chosen as its commanding officer when a quick response team was assembled to investigate the sudden comm loss with the pioneer team on Akuze. The reason was simple; this wasn't his first rapid-response landing. Hynes had been involved in five previous missions of a similar nature, the two most recent he had commanded. Only two of them had actually resulted in combat, his second and fifth, the others were a result of technical difficulties or a cosmological anomaly that interfered with the comm buoys. He hoped that this would just be another routine check-in but he knew better than to drop in unprepared; bored marines were better than dead marines any day.

"Commander Hynes, we're in a stable orbit over the colony, you have a go." The captain's voice came through Hynes' omni-tool.  
"Roger sir, depressurising the Hanger now," Hynes replied, then to the soldiers seated around him "Here we go." A quick rap on the cockpit door let the pilot know they were ready to leave. The pilot released the docking clamps and gave power to the engines, putting the shuttle in a stable hover within the hangar bay. Then once the bay door had opened the shuttle slipped out into the vacuum of space without another sound.

* * *

Shepard watched the shuttle leave and waited until the hangar was pressurised again, then he went back to weapons prep. Collapsing his M-7 Lancer he placed it on the magnetic attachment points on his hard-suit. Then he took his Firestorm Shotgun from its place in his gear locker and began to disassemble and then reassemble the weapon, checking the field generator, ammo block and his personal modifications. Satisfied, he collapsed it and attached it to the hard-point on his lower back. It was one of the benefits of being an N2, you got to use more specialised (and expensive) weapons, as well as being allowed to add modifications of your choosing. He finished by checking his Kessler pistol, the standard issue sidearm for the Alliance.

John grimaced as the preliminary report from Commander Hynes came through; the situation was not a comforting one.

With his weapons stowed and his suit sealed with systems running nominally, Shepard joined the other five members of his squad who had by now also finished their preparations.  
"Lieutenant." Corporal Toombs said as he turned and saluted Shepard as he approached. The rest of the squad did the same.  
"At ease." Shepard replied with a quick salute. "I trust you're all ready to move?"  
"Yes, sir!" they replied in unison.

Shepard could see the slight ticks they all had, nervous habits unique to the individual. Some re-checked their weapons, others fidgeted slightly while others still scanned the room, even though the cargo bay was quite secure. For his part, Shepard tended to rub the back of his neck, though he had to mentally restrain himself now that he was in a position of command; no sense in making your squad doubt you.

'Good' he thought to himself 'They're not taking this lightly, they'll be ready if we have to enter a combat zone.' He knew this was likely a milk run, but it was never worth not preparing.

"Good to hear, the _Gallipoli_ will be landing in five; the Commander will be dispensing orders once we touchdown. I want all of you to be at the top of your game. The commander hasn't reported any hostiles but he also said that there is no sign of the pioneer team and that there's evidence of serious combat. We're here to secure the site for the rest of the force arriving in three days, until they arrive we treat this as hostile territory."  
The other five members of Delta nodded.  
"Any questions you might have will have to wait until we're groundside;" Shepard stated, pre-empting the couple of younger marines who would inevitably have questions. "All we know is that there is no sign of the Pioneer team, Alpha team hasn't reported any hostile contacts and the area is currently secure. Now make any last minute preparations you need, make sure you've been to the little soldier's room and get ready to disembark!"  
A chorus of "Sir, yes Sir!" Greeted the lieutenant as his marines snapped into action.

* * *

**Systems Alliance Heavy Frigate SSV ****_Gallipoli_****, Akuze (October 18, 2177, 0830 hours, Colony Time):**

Hynes walked over to the Hanger Door once the _Gallipoli_ had landed on Akuze's surface, making sure to stand just far enough away so as not to be hit by the door as it lowered towards the planet. He was pleased to see that the marines still aboard the _Gallipoli_ were alert and ready to disembark, no trace of the flippant or disinterested attitudes that often plagued these missions; and got people killed.

"Marines, listen up! Bravo and Echo teams, link up with Alpha and secure the perimeter. Teams Charlie, Delta and Golf, prep the supplies and get them off the ship. Foxtrot, get a comm link to the buoys set up. Hotel, you've got the Grizzly." The Commander suppressed a grin as the squads went straight to the tasks they had been assigned. After Bravo and Echo had left the Hangar bay and Hotel squad had driven the M29A 'Grizzly' IFV off the ship, Haynes moved back on board to update the Captain on their progress and report to the brass about the state of the colony. He nodded to the marines unloading their supplies, which mostly consisted of rations and communication equipment as well as mini-facturing equipment and a not-insignificant amount of omni-gel for repairing any damage to critical infrastructure such as water mains or power generators. He reached the elevator and waited for it to ascend to the next deck. He would need to ask the Captain for use of the ships comm room until they could get comm gear working on the planet proper. Hynes was also going to suggest that the _Gallipoli_ wait in orbit until they were ready to leave, once all the supplies were unloaded and separate comms had been established. The elevator pinged and allowed him to step out into the CIC. Hynes found the captain surveying status reports in the centre of the mass of consoles that acted as the nerve centre of the vessel.

"Captain;" Haynes stood, saluting. His heavy armour and the veritable arsenal of weapons attached to his back made a lot of the bridge crew stare. The crimson stripe on his right arm and the N7 emblazoned on his chest only added to the effect. The Captain turned and shut down his omni-tool, returning Hynes' salute. "I assume that you're here to update me on your team's progress and the state of the Colony?"

"Yes sir." Hynes began describing what Alpha team had found upon landing.

* * *

Shepard surveyed the colony or what was left of it, which wasn't much. Craters, troughs and mounds of dirt littered the colony, prefab buildings were strewn all over the place and some of the walls looked to have _acid_ scarring across them. He had never seen anything like it. There was no evidence of a fire fight, no mass accelerator scoring, no bodies or blood stains, no explosive damage. It looked more like a Tornado had torn through the colony than any hostile force.

All of the supplies had been unloaded, so his squad had formed a perimeter around their camp as they waited for new orders.

"Think the SIU might have trying out some new toys?" Toombs practically spat the name out as he surveyed the acid damage. The Special Intervention Unit was the infamous Batarian Special Forces group, infamous for their callous brutality. They were also the only non-diplomatic members of the Batarian Hegemony allowed to leave Hegemony Space. There was a lot of speculation that the recent increase in surprisingly well armed and trained pirate attacks on human colonies and interests in the Verge were a result of covert funding and training by SIU units.

"I'm not sure, there's none of the typical evidence of a pirate raid, no evidence of a fire fight. We can leave the sleuthing to the experts when they arrive in a couple of days, until then we just need make sure that whatever attacked this colony doesn't come back."

* * *

Hynes strode down the Bay Door, the red and white stripe on his armour's right arm gleaming in the harsh lights from the cargo bay. This time none of the marines saluted, they were On Mission and highlighting to an enemy who your commanding officer is tends to be considered poor form.

Commander Hynes walked up to Shepard "Lieutenant, sitrep"

"Sir, all supplies unloaded and stored; Alpha, Bravo and Echo squads report Perimeter Secure and motion sensors active. Foxtrot is calibrating the comm array, it should be ready in ten minutes and Hotel is finishing a grid sweep looking for survivors, none found so far though."

"Good, good. There's a briefing at 0900 in the Operations Tent, don't be late." Hynes concluded in his traditionally blunt manner.

"Yes Sir." Shepard replied with a nod, resisting the urge to salute.

The Commander resumed walking, presumably to meet with the other Squad Leaders.

Over his squad's comm channel, Shepard relayed the information. "Squad, hold position for now, we'll have our new assignments soon. Chief, you've got command while I'm at the briefing."

The usual chorus of 'Acknowledged' and 'Roger' came back through his helmet's speakers. Shepard began to head off towards the tent, eager to get his latest orders so he could give his men something to do or at least let them get some food and rest.

* * *

Entering the Ops tent, Shepard found Lieutenant's Zhu and Treyn, leaders of Foxtrot and Echo respectively, already present. The state of the Colony had everyone spooked and until they were told otherwise this area was still unsecured, so no one was being particularly talkative. Shepard nodded to them as he entered and took a seat, waiting for the remaining squad leaders and the Commander himself. The remainder filed in over the next five minutes until finally Hynes arrived, right on 0900.

Tapping a couple of keys on his omni-tool, Hynes brought a up a map of the colony with patrol routes marked on it and threw it onto the big screen whilst simultaneously sending a copy to all of the marines in the room. "The Colony is secure for the moment, no signs of hostile activity or evidence of any survivors. Now we need to keep it secure until the main force arrives in 64 hours. Until then I want Bravo, Foxtrot and Hotel manning the Grizzly. One member of Hotel will be with the tank at all times while Bravo and Foxtrot can divide into two teams of three each. That gives us four teams of four. Each team will be on three hour rotations patrolling the outer perimeter; I'll leave you to work out the roster. Charlie, Delta, Echo and Golf will alternate on guard duty around the camp proper, six hours each; Charlie squad will be first, then Delta. Alpha squad will be on constant patrol around the camp perimeter for the duration of our stay. I want any squads not on active patrol to be combat ready and able to enter a fight within five minutes. Motion sensors are rigged at extreme range and drop ships are hard to miss so we should know if anything is approaching the camp. I'll be taking Alpha out in 30 minutes; Staff Lieutenant Jones has command of base operations if I am out of contact. Any questions?" He looked around, surveying the officers before him who shook their heads. "Good, go and get your squads ready, we'll be here for a while yet."

* * *

**[AN: And that's that.**

**Thanks for taking the time to read and the next chapter will be up approximately the same time next week. /AN]**


	6. The Death of Innocence: Part 2

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: And here's the next chapter. It was my first attempt at writing action sequences so I hope I've done it justice. All information about the Thresher Maws is extrapolated from what we know about the creatures in the Cannon Lore, but specifics are never given, so I came up with my own.**

**I hope you enjoy the chapter./AN]**

* * *

**Akuze, Command Post Alpha (October 18, 2177, 2245 hours, Colony Time):**

Shepard glanced up from the data-pad he was reading to survey his squad. Gibson and Vladick were catching some shut-eye after the squad's guard posting, while Jenson, Toombs and Forbes played a variant of Blackjack popular among the marines known as 'Blackgum', where rather than betting money they played for the Energy Bars, Jell-O and Chocolate that came with ration packs and drawing a Red Jack resulted in an immediate bust. Shepard decided that he should listen to his stomach so he got up out of the cot and strode over to the mess tent, which was really a 300L crate full of de-hydrated MRE's and a pair of general purpose microwave ovens. While military weaponry, vehicles and armour had advanced light years since the discovery of Mass Effect technology and the cross-culture exchange with other Citadel species, military cooking had advanced little in 200 years; dehydrated meals were still the most space efficient means of feeding troops. Grimacing at the thought of eating dressed up nutrient paste again, Shepard sifted through the packs attempting to find a new meal type in the vain hope that it wouldn't taste like cardboard. Settling on 'Tandoori Chicken and Fried Rice' he slit the seal on the packet with his combat knife and placed the water injection nozzle into the slit. Once enough water had been added he slipped the reconstituted packet inside the microwave and let it heat up. As he waited John looked around the camp site amidst the deserted colony. Akuze was a quite mild planet with conditions quite close to Earth, though tidal events and weather tended to be more extreme due to the four moons that orbited the planet. The colony was set up on second northern continent in the sub-tropical zone and site had been placed in a natural clearing near a mountain chain that would have provided an excellent water supply from both rainfall and rivers while the clearing gave the colony a good line of sight in the event of a pirate attack. 'At least it should have' he thought to himself, grimacing as he thought of the loss of life here. A jarring 'Beep' shook him out of his thoughts as the machine announced that he could now claim his sachet of warm paste. Pouring the contents into a bowl, he grabbed a utensil pack and returned to his cot. He needed to resist the urge to gag as he began to eat, the slimy texture and complete lack of flavour made the meal particularly unappetising; he decided that Tandoori Chicken was another 'No' meal. Seeing his Lieutenant's discomfort, Jenson spoke up. "Don't worry LT, you get used to it after the first hundred or so." A laugh went up from around the table.

"Glad I'm on number 85 then." He replied, joining in the laughter. "I'm starting to think they should include a straw with these utensil packs; I'm not sure how much good a knife and fork do when dealing with sludge."

"I think we can all agree on that Sir. I wonder how many signatures we'd need for a petition…" Forbes replied, rubbing his stubbled chin thoughtfully as another round of laughter came from the table. The laughter died quickly, however, as a slight shudder rumbled through the ground. Shepard excused himself from the group as his comm squawked. Shepard listened with interest as Treyn's voice came through his earpiece.

"Echo Lead here, anyone else feel that tremor? I didn't think this area was tectonically active."

"Echo Lead, this is Alpha Lead. We felt it too and you're right, the original survey noted this region as tectonically inactive."

"Delta Lead here, we felt it in the camp proper as well." Shepard said, adding his own report.

Hynes' voice came over the comms again. "Grizzly One, did you feel anything?"

"Negative Alpha Lead, though the radar system glitched out a minute ago. The suspension systems probably would have absorbed any shaking."

"Roger Grizzly One, send me a copy of the radar charts for the last fifteen minutes and keep me apprised of any more 'glitches'."

"Roger, sending now."

As quiet once again descended, Shepard returned to his cot. Whatever the tremor was, it hadn't even woken Gibson and Vladick up from their slumber. Poking his 'meal' a couple of times, he decided that he wasn't so hungry after all, so he stowed his helmet and gloves and tried to catch some sleep, setting his omni-tool to wake him in four hours.

* * *

"-ontact Engaged! Repeat, hostile contact engaged! This is Grizzly Actual requesting immediate assistance at grid location Golf Two, Bravo Three."

Shepard woke up immediately at the sound of the radio in his ear and the cannon fire in the distance. Quickly sitting up he grabbed his helmet and secured its seals, before going to do the same with his gloves. Around him he could see the rest of his squad doing the same. The Commander's voice once again came through his earpiece, relaying instructions.

"Acknowledged Grizzly Actual, Alpha is enroute to your position. Remaining squads, hold position and protect the camp and the _Gallipoli_. Grizzly Actual, can you give a description of the hostiles?"

"Only one hostile sir, it looks like an indigenous life form, very large, easily 30 metres tall. It just appeared out of the ground and attempted to attack the vehicle. I think it was the source of the tremors earlier. It retreated after we engaged it, though it didn't seem to be badly wounded. Recommend heavy weapons and armour piercing or explosive ammunition."

"Roger Grizzly Actual, fallback to the camp, Alpha will cover you. All squads, switch to high calibre weaponry and arm with explosive ordinance, marksmen to use armour piercing ammunition. Charlie squad, grab the Heavy Weapons and get them prepped. I want squads spread out and covering all angles of fire. _Gallipoli_, get airborne and in to orbit, we don't know this creature's capabilities yet. Any information you can find in the Council database would be appreciated as well." Hynes' voice was calm, methodical. It was an unexpected situation, but he wasn't going to let that faze him, Special Forces are trained to handle unexpected situations.

"Roger Alpha Actual, _Gallipoli _beginning prep for dust-off, we'll be airborne in three."  
Acknowledgments from the other squad leaders came through to Hynes and Shepard added his own acknowledgment as he began to organise his squad. "Alright everyone, weapons hot. Jenson, get that Tungsten ammo loaded and take up position on top of the prefab to the left. Vladick, Forbes, I want you to dig in near the garage and help the Grizzly team when they arrive. Gibson, Toombs and I will set up overlapping fields of fire across the courtyard. Remember to fire in short, controlled bursts, explosive ammo will quickly overheat your weapon if you fire full-auto." He snapped off orders, the training in his mind taking over, positioning his men to cover the entrance for the Grizzly and Alpha team. Detaching his Lancer and activating the explosive ammunition modification, he took position behind a set of crates as Toombs and Gibson did the same five metres on either side of him. Tense seconds followed as all that could be heard was the growing thrum of the _Gallipoli's_ drive core as it powered up and the growl of the Grizzly's engine as it drew closer. The marines waited, prepared for any assault on their position. And that was their biggest flaw. The creature launched itself out of the ground and latched onto the hull of the_ Gallipoli_. Shepard hadn't been prepared for the immense size of the creature. It was nearly the size of the _Gallipoli_ and more of it was still buried under the surface. It raised two scythe-like raptorial appendages and brought them down, crashing through the hull of the vessel like it was made of cardboard, the screech of rending metal carrying through the night air. The long wormlike body rippled with muscle and purple chitinous plates as it struggled to drag the impaled prey back into its underground lair. The marines in the camp were transfixed by the carnage in front of them, unsure of how to react. Screaming over the comm from the crew aboard the _Gallipoli_ spurred the marines into action, however. As one they broke cover and opened fire on the behemoth attacking their fellow servicemen. The crack of high powered rifles and clatter of automatic weapons filled the air as small explosions blossomed across the creatures hide where the explosive rounds impacted. Despite the volume of rounds hitting the creature it barely flinched at the fusillade, continuing to haul the _Gallipoli_ off the landing pad. Shepard was also firing, using sharp burst of fire, trying to hit at what looked like weak points on the creature, to little avail. Just then an enormous explosion roared out from the side of the beast, taking a chunk of the chitinous armour with it. The thing screamed and rapidly retreated into the earth, the cracked plating on its side smoking from the impact of the shell. Shepard looked around for the source and saw the Grizzly cresting the top of a nearby hill. After quickly scanning the area, a number of marines quickly made their way over to the battered frigate and began to pry open the emergency escape hatches to help the crew of the ship escape. As Alpha team began to come into view parallel to the Grizzly, another tremor shook the ground beneath them as the creature rose out of the ground again, three hundred metres away from the camp. The turret on the Grizzly began to rotate towards the animal, turning to face the threat. The beast was faster however and it arched backwards and released a projectile from its mouth. The object impacted the Grizzly side on, splashing across the second tire and turret barrel. The areas that the blast had impacted immediately began to smoke as the acid pitted and scored the metal, rendering the turret barrel severely weakened and the tire inoperable. The Grizzly's crew were unaware of the barrel damage however and as soon as the gun was lined up, the order came to fire. The force of the shell firing caused the barrel to break apart spectacularly and the shell to spin away harmlessly as the turret recoiled horribly, nearly breaking it off the vehicle in its entirety. The creature then began to line up another attack on the damaged _Gallipoli_. Seeing what was about to happen, Shepard shouted over the comm to the marines around the ship.

"Get out of the way! Go! GO!" He shouted, hoping someone would realise what was about to happen. A couple looked up and saw the creature preparing to strike; they began to warn their comrades, trying to get them out of the way. Too late. The acid impacted across the hull of the _Gallipoli _and five of the marines nearby, their screams audible even without the comms as the acid ate through their armour, then their flesh. Shepard had no idea if any of them were still alive, but it was a question that would have to wait as things began to happen very quickly.

He watched in horror as another creature launched out of the ground and wrapped its tentacle-like mouthparts around the Grizzly. With no weaponry and no mobility, the crew inside were helpless as they entire vehicle was dragged underground. Toombs and Gibson traded a shocked look between them. It was a look that said 'Game Over'. More than a little shaken, Toombs turned to their lieutenant.

"Sir, what should we-"

The corporal was cut off as two more of the creatures rose from the ground and attacked the _Gallipoli_ once more; sinking their scythes deep through the hull and leaching acid in an attempt to further weaken their prey. A couple of marines fired at the creatures in vain, their small-arms lacking the power to even annoy the creatures. Just as before the beasts attempted to drag the frigate into the ground, but this time they extended glowing blue 'tongues' that carved clean through the armoured hull, further weakening the ship's structural integrity. That was evidently enough as the Gallipoli gave a piercing cry as the entire ship broke into pieces, two parts being dragged down into the abyss by the retreating monsters. And then it was over. Silence descended on the camp, no one knew what to say. In two minutes they had lost their armoured support, their evac route and a fifth of their number, and inflicted little more than a flesh wound on the creatures that had done it. In terms of military tactics, the creatures could do little better if they were planning to thoroughly annihilate their enemy. Either they were exceptionally intelligent or they were exceptionally aggressive and Shepard wasn't sure which was worse. Hynes and the rest of Alpha team arrived shortly after and he rallied all the marines to his position.

"Marines, I know what you're thinking right now, that we don't have a chance, that we're all dead men walking. But we are still alive and we can still fight. These things don't seem very interested in us, hopefully we can keep it that way, but until the cavalry arrives I want information. Delta squad, link up with the Alliance. Give them a sit-rep and see if they have any information about these hostiles. Everyone else, I want an accounting of our casualties; see if there is anyone still alive out there that we can help. Keep yourselves spread out and if they come back, just run, normal weapons don't have enough punch to damage them. Dismissed."

His formal, crisp tone helped to focus the marines, their fear replaced with action now that they had something to do. Shepard took stock of Delta team and moved off towards the comm gear. He left Jenson and Toombs on look-out while Vladick, Gibson and Forbes helped the other marines with their tasks. Interfacing with the comm satellite, he attempted to raise Alliance Command. He knew they wouldn't be getting any reinforcements for at least another 50 hours, when the main force arrived, so advising Command of the new developments and trying to get information were the priorities. After a couple of minutes he was finally routed through to the Intelligence Office.

"State your name, rank and verification code" came the synthesised voice of the VI that controlled comm traffic through the Alliance systems.

"Staff Lieutenant John Shepard, Verification Code: Alpha – Kilo – Zulu – Romeo – Romeo – Delta – 1"

"Identity verified. Transferring you to the Intelligence Officer for your mission."

Shepard waited for another half-a-minute until another voice finally came over his headset.

"Lieutenant, your platoon has another four hours until the next scheduled check-in, what's happening?"

"Sir, our force has been attacked by hostile unidentified indigenous life-forms and we have suffered heavy casualties. The _SSV Gallipoli_ has been destroyed and we are currently undertaking rescue efforts. In addition our IFV has also been destroyed, along with at least seven marines."

There was an obvious pause before the reply as the Intel officer on the other end of the line tried to digest what he had just been told.

"You're saying that an indigenous life-form did this. Preliminary surveys of the colony site made no mention of anything capable of doing that. Can you give me a description? I'll pass it along to our Council Liaison, the other races might have come across something like this before."

"They appear to be a primarily subterranean species and they are huge, easily larger than an Alliance Frigate. The best way I could describe them would be worm-like, with purple coloured armour plating covering the back. They possess two very large raptorial appendages and a large blue tongue that can seemingly chew through metal. They also use a powerful acid as a projectile weapon."

"Okay Lieutenant, I'll pass this along and get back to you as soon as possible, stay near the comm system until you hear back from us."

"Roger, be advised however that we may need to vacate the area if they return, our weapons have been completely ineffective so far."

"Understood Lieutenant, we will be in contact soon."

The fifteen minutes it had taken had felt like an eternity to John as he paced nervously around the satellite uplink, but Alliance Intel had come through for them. They now knew what they were facing, though it didn't paint a pretty picture. Apparently the creatures were called Thresher Maws and were believed to have originated on Tuchanka, the Krogan Homeworld, where they are the Apex Predator. That alone was enough to set alarm bells of in his head, everything that lived on Tuchanka was designed both to kill and not be killed, even the remaining plants make a Grizzly Bear look like a cute stuffed animal in comparison. Thresher Maws apparently use their raptorial scythes as their main method of attack but also have powerful digestive acids as well as the capacity to produce concentrated sonic pulses that can stun their victims at best or pulverise them at worst. The 'tongue' that had so easily ripped through the hull of the _Gallipoli_ was in fact a radula formed out of titanium and carbon crystals that was mainly used for burrowing but, like everything else about the creature, could easily be turned into a weapon. To make matters worse, their defensive capabilities were just as potent as their offensive ones. They were resistant to all known types of radiation, and are actually known to utilise many forms as an energy source in a process similar to photosynthesis. They possess very rapid cellular regeneration, even greater than that of a Krogan and their armour plating is composed of a very dense carbon weave superficially similar to Carbon Fibre, giving them significant protection from Mass Accelerator rounds. All of the information provided gave Shepard little hope of beating them, a feeling that only increased when it was revealed that the standard tactics employed by the Turians if they encountered one was to call in heavy vehicle support, preferably aerial, or failing that to avoid combat and retreat as rapidly as possible to an exfiltration point. Only vehicle mounted weapons or the most powerful of man portable weapons had proven to have any effect on the Maws in combat and it commonly ended with the Maw retreating only to reappear beneath its target. After relaying this information to the Commander, Shepard went to check on his squad while Hynes formulated a plan.

As he ascended the ladder next to the door, Shepard could see the prone forms of the two marines he'd left assigned as look-outs, propped up on the cool metal of the prefab structure's roof.

"Lieutenant." Jenson noted, not taking his eyes from his scope as he scanned the horizon.

"Chief, Corporal," Shepard replied, nodding to Jenson and Toombs in turn. "How is it looking out there?"

"Nothing's moved since the last attack twenty minutes ago, and I mean nothing, no bugs, none of those skink like things. It's way too quiet."

Shepard nodded his head grimly, agreeing with his squad's lead sniper and scout. Jenson could spot a camouflaged reconnaissance unit moving over dense terrain with ease, so he was usually the squad's first line of defence against hostile incursions, but now the enemies they fought bypassed the surface entirely, so he was using his trained eye to watch for movement in the ground. Toombs was acting as his spotter, and as well as providing a second set of eyes the Corporal had also brought an AT-63 missile launcher. The AT-63 was a single shot, disposable, self-guided High Explosive Anti Tank (HEAT) weapon, designed for use on light armoured vehicles, shuttles, gunships etc. Shepard had no idea if it would be enough to stop a thresher maw, but it was better than the alternative.

"Did you get any information from the Brass sir?" Toombs asked, glancing back at the Lieutenant.

"Yeah, but you're not going to like it. They're called Thresher Maws, originally from Tuchanka."

"You mean the Krogan planet?"

"Yeah"

"Crap"

"My thoughts exactly."

"How do we kill them?"

"I don't know, the Commander is working out a plan at the moment, expect a full briefing shortly, but from what I've heard, it will have to be one hell of a plan."

"Do you think they'll be back?"

"Not sure, the fact they didn't continue to attack after they destroyed the Grizzly and the _Gallipoli_ makes me think they were dealing with things they considered a threat, and it would appear that we're not on that list. Let's just hope it stays that way."

"What about the Colonists? No way they would have been more of a threat than us."

Shepard hadn't considered the fate of the Pioneer Team. Their demise, presumably at the hands of the Thresher Maws seemed to indicate another reason for their behaviour.

"Hmmm, I don't know. There are a lot of unknowns here." Then, trying to lighten the sombre air he continued "Anyway, we're just payed to shoot stuff, not work out the motivations for giant alien worms; we can leave that to the techs and the brass to figure out."

That got a couple of chuckles out of the marines.

Jenson spoke up shortly after, still keeping his eyes focused down the sights. "Any information on these things' weak points LT?"

"Not really, the whole body is armoured. Avoid the purple plating on the back; it's even tougher than the rest of it."

"Or you could just shoot wherever this baby hits it." Toombs said with a smile as he hefted the launcher "I'm sure it will make a big enough dent in those things to do some damage."

"Let's hope you don't have to use it Corporal." He said before turning to go check on the rescue operation from the _Gallipoli_ and sliding down the ladder.

* * *

Shepard spent the next half an hour sifting through debris and searching the mangled carcass of the Heavy Frigate for survivors. So far there had been only corpses. It would appear that the entire crew of thirty four had been killed in the attack; the sheer violence of the assault that had gutted the ship had also caused fires to rage through the ship's interior and now what was left of the tangled remains was charred almost beyond recognition and many sections were still too hot to search properly, though the chances of anyone surviving were slim to none. He looked over at the row of body bags filled with the burnt remains of the crew and the acid scarred bodies of the marines caught in the Maw's attack. Shepard mentally cursed himself for not being able to save them. 'I saw what was happening, but I couldn't stop it, I couldn't save them.' Forcing himself to look away he turned back to the wreckage. He still had a job to do, still had men to lead; he couldn't afford the luxury of self-pity. Once more his omni-tool beeped and Commander Hynes' voice came across his earpiece. He looked up from his work and saw all the marines around him do the same indicating that he was talking to everyone.

"Marines, assemble outside the ops tent ASAP, we've got a lot of intel to go through."

Glancing back at the charred mass of metal that used to be a beautiful ship now splayed in front of him, he threw what used to be an I-Beam to the ground and turned to walk back to the camp, ensuring that the other marines followed his lead. They knew as well as he did that there was nothing more they could do for souls, alive or dead, left in the wreckage.

The marines were arrayed throughout the courtyard in the camp, many of them now sported armour covered in soot and blood as they sat on crates of supplies or leaned against tent poles as the Commander explained what they now knew about Thresher Maws. Shepard could see the colour drain from the faces of some of them, and a couple decided it would be wise to sit down pre-emptively but by and large they took the information that they were fighting an unknown number of gigantic, near invulnerable alien worms pretty well. Then Hynes' began to describe their plan of action for the next 49 hours as he paced in front of the platoon.

"We don't have the firepower to fight these things, but so far they don't seem that interested in us. If we're lucky it will stay that way but I'm not foolish enough to bank on it. Foxtrot will jury rig the motion sensors into seismic sensors, which should give us some warning if they come back. I also want our marksmen out on the rooftops keeping an eye out. You've got the only small arms capable of hurting the Maws so make your shots count, look for gaps in the armour or the region around the mouth. I also want our heavy weapon stores to be distributed around the colony. If these things attack again we can't try a traditional defence, we need to spread out and hit them wherever they show up. Try to stay sparse, bunching up makes you vulnerable if they start spitting acid or come up inside the camp. I won't lie to you, we don't know how many there are, we don't know if we can really hurt them and we don't know what causes them to attack. So far they've ignored us and I pray that it continues because we've got two more days until reinforcements get here. If they do attack, then you have two choices, you can fight, or you can die, because right now there are not a lot of other options."

The rest of the marines nodded sombrely, they knew the score but they would be damned if they were going to go down without a fight.

* * *

**[AN: So what did you think? This story isn't getting many views and I'm not sure if that because my summary is simply the least interesting thing in the world or if people simply aren't seeing it because the only major character game character featured in the list is Shepard himself.**

**Regardless of the reasons, it would be great if those of you who have taken the time to read this story so far could provide some feedback, particularly if you think there is something I could improve on.**

**Thanks again for reading. /AN]**


	7. The Death of Innocence: Part 3

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: And this is the final piece of the Akuze Arc, I hope you have enjoyed my take on it. The remaining chapters will largely be about his recovery and where he goes from this point. ****/AN]**

* * *

**Akuze, Command Post Alpha (October 19, 2177, 1310 hours, Colony Time):**

The sound was felt more than heard, but every single marine instantly grabbed their weapons when they felt it. A single large pulse surged through the ground, and then through the air a couple of seconds later, travelling as fast as physics would allow the shockwave to. But this tremor felt different to Shepard. It wasn't like the vibrations that heralded the arrival of the Thresher Maws. Those _felt_ organic, but this felt artificial, a single powerful note designed to travel through rock.

He didn't have time to dwell on his thoughts however as an all too distinct set of tremors began throughout the campsite. None of the other marines needed to be told what to do; they scrambled for cover amongst the abandoned prefabs, some shouldering the missile launchers spread throughout the camp.

Shepard was thinking quickly now 'Get to higher ground, get off the ground and bunker down.' He wasn't sure how much difference it would make, but he figured it couldn't possibly hurt his chances. He dashed out of the tent while holstering his rifle before he leaped onto the ladder on the side of the same prefab that Jenson and Toombs were camping on. Once he reached the top he slid into a prone position next to them and unlimbering his shotgun, charging it up to fire a superheated mass of metal known colloquially among the marines as a 'Carnage' shot due to its destructive nature when it impacted tissue. He also passed a Thermite laced ammunition block to Toombs as he explained.

"Assault rifles don't have the punch to make it through these things armour, even with AP modifications, but incendiaries might at least do some damage. Jenson, stick with the Tungsten for your sniper rifle and prioritise high powered shots around the head area. Don't worry about the rate of fie decrease; more rounds won't mean jack if they aren't doing any damage."

"And that's why you're the officer." Toombs replied with a grin as he slammed the new ammo block home into the guns receiver and discarded the previous, well used ammo block.

John took a quick survey of the area around them. They were on a building positioned towards the North West corner of the colony with the other marines arrayed in a loose circle throughout the other buildings, either on top or inside them.

The pre-fab's weren't secured into the ground in any meaningful way so he had little doubt that a Maw could bulldoze one aside with relative ease and looking around he could definitely see some that had been shifted off their meagre foundations at an earlier time. The drop from rooftop to ground was less than ten feet, so a negligible obstacle if they needed to reposition in a hurry. There were two of AT-63 HEAT missile packs as well. Some marines had set mounted heavy machine guns and automated turrets on other nearby rooftops, giving them commanding fields of fire against an approaching enemy, and though Shepard wasn't sure that it would be quite as effective against foes that burrowed _under_ their prey to attack it, he was glad that the extra firepower was there nonetheless.

* * *

The tremors had been building for the last minute when the first of the Thresher Maws erupted from the ground just outside of the prefab perimeter, ripping into a nearby building with its scythe-like limbs. There hadn't been any marines inside at the time, but the ease at which it tore through the metal was humbling for those watching.

The awe didn't last long however as marines began to open fire, peppering the beast with hyper-velocity rounds all across its carapace, leaving small dents and score marks on the thick hide and armour. Small explosions and spot fires blossomed as specialised ammunitions came into play, but the effect was still negligible.

Some rounds impacted softer areas around the mouthparts of the Thresher, causing it to scream in rage and rush back into the earth. Its retreat constituted little more than a brief reprieve however, as five more of the beasts exploded from the ground. They immediately began tearing into the buildings and fortifications, hurling acid based projectiles at some clusters of marines and simply swallowing others who were unfortunate enough to be caught on open ground. Soon the colony-turned-battlefield rang with the otherworldly shrieks of the Thresher Maws and the strangled cries of dying and wounded marines, painfully and clearly audible even over the reports of dozens of rifles, explosives and heavy weapons.

Shepard released his carnage blast at the nearest Maw, watching as the round gouged a small hole in its armour even as he stowed the shotgun and switched to his rifle. Next to him Toombs was firing in extended bursts at the same creature, focusing on the impact region of his lieutenant's carnage shot while the _twang_ of Jenson's rifle came at a steady rate as he lined up shots and boosted the accelerator power inside the weapon to max before firing and letting the heat vent, then repeating the process, alternating between firing at the weaker armour around the mandibles and firing at the wound in its side that was slowly beginning to leak bright orange blood.

Flaming rounds found their mark and bit into the cracked armour, shattering it and slowly exposing the flesh beneath but if the damage was any hindrance to the Maw, it didn't show as it continued to assault another prefab housing some of the members of Bravo squad.

The Maw sliced down repeatedly, stabbing clean through from ceiling to base with its wickedly bladed appendages while its mouthparts searched for edible morsels inside the strange metallic box. Finding nothing but gunfire inside it lowered its head until its crest lay flush with the wall and emitted a barrage of Ultra Low Frequency sound waves in rapid succession.

At that range there was nothing the marines inside could do as their organs were turned to mush from the pressure wave created by the immense sound crashed into their bodies. The creature returned to searching for food inside the pre-fab, its tentacle-like mouthparts curling around the pulverised remains of the marines and directing them into its cavernous maw where an array of pharyngeal teeth waited to greet anything that passed through its mouth.

Seeing how the Maw was distracted by its meal, a marine inside another pre-fab took the opportunity to line up a shot with an AT-63. The missile streaked out of the building and covered the distance in less than a second, slamming into the Thresher, detonating and sending a lance of molten metal deep into the creature, as the second stage explosive activated inside the wound 0.3 seconds later. Orange blood and flesh flew out from the badly wounded Maw as it writhed in pain and retreated quickly into the ground. A cheer could be heard from some of the marines as the Maw disappeared beneath the earth, leaving a substantial trail of blood and tissue behind.

The reverie was short lived, however, as an acid blast slammed into the window that the rocket had come from and screams could be heard from the marines inside as the acid coated their hard suits and weapons, quickly eating through the synthetic materials and reaching the flesh beneath.

Shepard winced inwardly and switched fire to the next closest Maw, firing with one hand while he charged another carnage blast on his shotgun. Toombs reached for a missile on the ground beside him and hefted it to his shoulder trying to lock on to the rapidly moving Thresher Maws.

"I can't get a lock LT! They're moving too fast." He shouted through gritted teeth as he tried to get a lock on the creatures.

"Fire manually, aim for the area where they come up out of the ground; that gives you the longest window to hit."

"Yes Sir." The Corporal replied with a grin as he took aim at the nearest Maw and pulled the trigger.

The missile streaked out of the barrel, covering the distance rapidly before releasing it payload into the creature. The missile hit a glancing blow to the side of the immense beast but it was enough to cause a large gash across the heavily armoured and muscled body. The wound was clearly severe enough to make it pull back into the ground, its part in this battle now over.

Two Threshers down but the marines had taken significant casualties. Shepard's HUD showed that the comm signal from both Bravo and Echo Squad Leaders was down and he had seen a number of marines taken out already. He estimated their current strength at twenty five and there were at least three Thresher Maws still an active threat.

As he loosed another carnage blast and drew a bead on the third beast, another Maw erupted from the ground just off to the side of their pre-fab, wrenching it clear off its foundations and sending it tipping on to its side. The world seemed to move in slow motion for Shepard as everything began to tilt and he started to slip off the roof of the structure. He braced himself against the lip of the roof until the world went vertical and slammed into the ground, causing him to go tumbling away and land in a heap five metres from the now tipped over pre-fab.

He shook his head quickly to try and regain his wits and he could feel a lance of pain shoot up his right side where he had landed heavily on his hip and shoulder. He winced as he struggled to get up; eventually rising to his knees. He looked around and saw Toombs struggling to do the same after his fall. Searching further, he saw Jenson also beginning to rise just as a Thresher's scythe like arm stabbed clean through him, pinning him to the ground as the uneven serrations dug through his body and a mist of blood coated the inside of his visor. Blood quickly began to pool around the wound and mixed with the dirt around his now lifeless corpse.

Adrenaline coursed through John's veins at the sight of his squad mate and friend's grisly death. He jumped to his feet and reached out to grab Toombs' arm and drag him to the nearest piece of cover. After taking a couple of seconds to recover their breath, Toombs spoke up.

"What about the Chief, aren't we going to go get him?"

"Jenson's dead, he never stood a chance." It was true, he could see his squads vitals at the bottom left of his HUD and Jenson had flat lined almost immediately after the Maw had hit him. Checking now he saw that Gibson's vitals were very weak as well.

"Vladick, what happened to Gibson?" He called over the comm.

"He got hit by some of the acid, burned clean through his armour on his side. Forbes has patched him up with medi-gel and tried to clean the area of acid with some saline but I don't like his chances."

"Right, keep an eye on him but there's not much more you can do. Focus on keeping yourselves alive. When we get back, the first round or five is on me."

"Haha, yes sir. I'll hold you to it." The comm clicked off as Vladick went back work. They both knew the odds of anyone surviving were slim at best but it didn't help to keep saying it.

Looking over the small chunk of rubble that they were hiding behind, John eyed the nearest pre-fab that didn't have a Maw tearing into it, about fifty metres away. He caught Toombs' eye and motioned towards the structure. They would have to make a break for it. Shepard didn't like the idea of running across open ground where being hit by both Thresher Maws and friendly fire was a strong possibility, but it was better than staying where they were, less than twenty feet from the Maw that had killed Jenson. Once he was certain that Toombs knew what he was indicating he held up his hand and counted down from five.

Five… Toombs nodded, understanding what his lieutenant was indicating.

Four… They both readied their weapons.

Three… Toombs rose to one knee and tensed himself to run.

Two… Shepard did the same.

One… Weapons in their hands they waited.

Zero.

They both rose and shot out from behind their meagre cover, ducking and weaving between twisted chunks of metal and the Thresher's themselves as they sprinted across the open ground. Shepard reached the building and turned to look for Toombs. The entire run had taken only seven seconds but it had felt like an eternity.

As he looked out, he saw Toombs scurrying to grab his rifle from the ground. He must have stumbled and dropped it as he ran. He was only five metres from the doorway Shepard stood at so he called out to him, urging him to hurry up. Just as he grabbed his rifle the earth beneath him erupted as another Thresher Maw burst forth. The impact threw Toombs through the air and he landed heavily, dazed by the sudden flight. The beast leaned over him and coiled its body back, preparing to strike. Shepard desperately reached out his hand, the action being little more than symbolic.

For the second time in as many minutes, time seemed to slow for Shepard. He swore he could see the air around his hand distorting slightly as he felt a blinding pain shoot through his spine. He collapsed to his knees and he could taste blood at the back of his throat, running down from his nose. He looked up once more, just in time to see Toombs roll clumsily out of the way of the thresher's strike. But before he could get out of the way, the beast's tongue wrapped around his leg and as it slunk back to its subterranean domain and dragged the doomed corporal with it.

Kneeling as he was in the doorway of the pre-fab, Shepard could only watch, helpless. Even then however, he was not granted a reprieve. Another Maw burst from the ground near the shack and he scrambled inside, sitting back against the wall in an attempt to minimise his profile.

No luck.

Both of the Thresher's scythes pierced clean through the roof and sent shards of the metal roof into the ground, one of which pinned his left arm to the ground. The blades retracted then hammered down repeatedly. Unable to free his arm, Shepard could do little but try to lie as close to the ground as possible. In the midst of the chaos a piercing note rang out from his helmet as Gibson's vitals flat lined. That terrible note was replaced by one far worse as one of the Maw's strikes came down right over his faceplate.

The beast's scythe didn't reach far enough to actually pierce the helmet, but the jagged piece of roof that was forced down with it did. It punched a jagged hole in his visor and cut a vicious gash down the left side of his face, running downwards from his brow to his lips and slicing his left eye open.

Shepard felt strange. He had expected to feel extreme pain, like his entire nervous system was on fire, but instead he felt nothing. A detached part of his mind told that this meant he was going into shock due to the massive trauma and amount of adrenaline coursing through his body at the moment. Still, he felt oddly peaceful as he felt the warm sensation of blood and vitreous solution running down half of his face. With the helmet totalled and his left arm pinned he couldn't administer any medi-gel to the wound, and he wasn't sure if it would have helped anyway.

He could feel his now monocular vision go blurry as he began to become light headed from blood loss or shock, he wasn't sure, but regardless of the cause he resigned himself to his fate, unable to fight any more, trapped with a large chunk of metal pinning him to the ground. As he began to fade completely he was only dimly aware of the sounds of the battle still raging around him, the shrieks of Thresher Maws and screams of marines still echoing through his mind.

* * *

**[AN: So that's that, thanks for taking the time to read. If you have any thoughts on this so far, any at all, I'd love to hear them.**

**Thanks again for taking the time to read. /AN]**


	8. Requiescat In Pace

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: Here begins the fallout and recovery from Akuze.**

**This chapter focuses mainly on Shepard's state of mind after the event and rather unsurprisingly deals with PTSD. I am quite aware of how serious the condition is for many that suffer from it and I do not mean to belittle its severity in any way, but my description is limited by my lack of knowledge or experience with PTSD. Again, I hope it is not cause for offense for anyone.**

**As always, I hope you enjoy the chapter./AN]**

* * *

Cold…

Bright…

Pain…

This was all that John was aware of as he floated through the vague world of his own unconscious. Everything felt cold, he was only dimly aware of his own body, but he knew that it was cold. From what little information he could interpret from his senses, he could tell that it was bright.

One thing he was _very_ aware of though was the pain, the pain that lanced through his body in rhythm with his heartbeat. These moments of awareness were rare as he spent most of what he perceived as time dropping in and out of semi-consciousness. He began to lose his sensory awareness once more and nothingness engulfed his mind.

**Systems Alliance Cruiser SSV _Beijing_, Arcturus System****(October 22, 2177, 0715 hours, Ship Time):**

John slowly began to awaken, his eyelids gradually parting as they adjusted to the glare filtering through.

His surroundings began to come into focus as he panned his head around the room, blinking rapidly to try and clear his eyes. He recognised quickly that he was in a medbay, probably aboard a ship due to the slight hum of a drive core. He tried to sit up to get his bearings but as he reached for the railing his hand went clear past it.

'No depth perception, why wouldn't I have any…' his thoughts trailed off as he became aware of the slight pressure over his left eye. He reached up with a hand and felt the thick gauze and cool, sticky feeling of fresh medi-gel across the left side of his face. Memories immediately began to manifest in his mind as the events of Akuze rushed to the front of his mind. The Thresher Maws, the loss of the _Gallipoli_, Gibson, Jenson, Toombs, all of the other marines who had died down there.

His pulse began to rise as the memories asserted themselves, pain rushing across his face and chest with every beat of his heart, but he didn't notice. The words of one of his instructors at OCS flashed into his mind, "If you find yourself waking up in a medbay after a mission then you know it's gone to hell." He truly hoped that his instructor was wrong, that the other marines had made it out. The fact that he was here boded well for that he thought, how else could he have survived if not for the timely intervention of the other marines? The last thing he remembered was waiting to bleed out after a chunk of metal had lodged itself in his face. But the rational part of his mind told him that the mission had already gone to hell before he lost consciousness; they had already lost their ship, their tank and half of the marines that had landed on the planet.

In an attempt to clear his head of these thoughts, he looked around, trying to get an idea of where he was. He could tell he was on a ship, a cruiser most likely judging by the size of the medbay (growing up on ships meant he had become well acquainted with just about every class of vessel the Alliance fielded). He continued scanning, attempting to get used to his now monocular vision while he searched for a doctor or someone who could give him some answers. He tried to sit up but a wave of nausea and pain washed over him, demanding he remain still. As his head returned to the pillow he immediately felt tired once more and his good eye quickly closed, allowing him to return to sleep.

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Barton Medical Clinic (October 24, 2177, 1815 hours, Station Time):**

When Shepard awoke again he could no longer feel the faint vibration of a drive core or the subtle inertia of a ship moving through space but the sterile white nature of his surroundings led him to believe that he was still in a medbay of some type; the burning scent of antiseptic reinforced that belief. His left eye was still covered in gauze but the bandaging was less extensive now and he couldn't feel any medi-gel lathered across his wounds. He took that to be a good sign, but it meant he had been asleep for much longer than he had thought.

Once again blinking rapidly to try and restore function to his right eye he looked around the room, avoiding sitting up like last time. Seeing nothing but ominously empty beds he decided that he was likely in a hospital, which meant that there should be a call button nearby. Before he could locate it though, a doctor entered the room, moving rapidly towards his bed with an Alliance Commander in tow, wearing full Dress Uniform; one whom he instantly recognised. The doctor began to examine readouts on the monitors arrayed around his bed as Shepard struggled to lift his arm to salute his superior.

"Easy Lieutenant, you're in no shape to worry about saluting, hell the doctors tell me you shouldn't even be alive. Considering all you went through on Akuze I'm not surprised; my marines couldn't believe you were still breathing when they found you."

Shepard let his arm return to the far more comfortable position by his side at the Commander's words.

"How are you feeling son? I wanted to give you a chance to ask any questions you might have before Intel debriefs you. You've been out cold for nearly a week so I figured it couldn't hurt to let you get your bearings." The Commander said as he pulled up a chair near the bed and sat down.

Shepard was still a bit shocked; the last person he had expected to see was Commander David Anderson. Commander Anderson was a legend among Marine Special Forces; he was in the first class of the N7 program, graduating with top honours while he was still a Lieutenant. His actions during the First Contact War made him a hero and the missions he had undertaken since then made him a legend even though half of them were still classified. A running joke amongst the ground troops was that if he melted down all of his medals he could make a life-size statue of himself, with material to spare.

"Thank you Sir, that's very generous of you, Sir." He finally said.

"I suppose I should tell you now, you're on indefinite medical leave until you have been judged to have recovered sufficiently from your wounds yadda yadda, you know how it works." Anderson said with a slight smile. "So for all intents and purposes, I'm not your superior officer at the moment, so you can drop the formality. So, do you have any questions? The doctors say that you should be largely recovered in another day or two, and then you'll be debriefed."

"What happened to the other Marines, and the rest of my squad?" Shepard asked after taking a moment to decide whether or not he really wanted to know the answer to that question.

"I'm sorry son, but they are all dead or MIA, presumed KIA. You're the only one we found alive when we arrived at the colony." Anderson shook his head sadly as he relayed the news. He'd figured that it would be the first question that the Lieutenant would ask, but that didn't make it any easier.

"I see…" Shepard replied quietly, taking in the complete loss of the platoon. "And the crew of the _Gallipoli_?"

"Also dead or MIA, we haven't had a chance to do a proper accounting because of the threat that the Thresher Maws pose."

There was a long pause before Shepard spoke again.

"Sir, if I may, how am I…" He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.

"How are you alive? I was leading the main force so when Intel relayed your update about the Thresher Maws. I prepped a couple of squads for rescue and recovery and your suit's telemetry led them to you. Their medic said you'd lost a lot of blood and that your vitals were all over the place. They managed to free you from the wreckage and stabilise your condition enough to get you back on the ship. They also recovered some of the bodies of the other marines and returned to the _SSV Beijing_. That was five days ago and now you're on Arcturus Station, in the Barton Medical Centre. The doctors say you're lucky to be alive, apparently you lost more than a third of your blood and the shock from the damage to your body combined with the amount of Adrenaline they had to filter out…" Anderson shook his head in disbelief, "basically you should have been dead four times over, yet here you are."

Shepard contemplated this. 'Why am I still alive, when everyone else is dead? What cruel twist of fate demanded their deaths but spared me? Why should I have come so close to death only to be saved, when I couldn't even do the same for a friend less than fifteen feet away from me?'

Seeing the Lieutenant's inner turmoil, Anderson made to leave, but before he reached the door Shepard asked another question, speaking with a confused detachment.

"Sir, there's one more thing. Just before I lost consciousness I tried to reach one of my men, Corporal Toombs, but he was killed before I could get to him."

"I'm sorry to hear that…" Anderson began but Shepard kept speaking, his brow creased in confusion.

"I reached out my hand for him even though I knew I couldn't reach him. But then my hand…shimmered and my head and spine felt like it was on fire. Do you have any idea about that?"

Now it was Anderson's turn to look confused. That sounded like biotics, but nothing in the Lieutenant's file said he was a biotic and he certainly didn't seem aware of the possibility. Deciding it was best to confirm his theory before hitting the man with that sort of news while he was recovering, Anderson did his best to sound convincing.

"I don't know what that could be; maybe your eyes lost focus for a bit because of the stress or adrenaline? I'll ask the doctors, see if they know anything. If there's nothing else, I'll let you get back to recuperating."

"Nothing more, Sir. Thank you for filling me in."

Anderson nodded in reply and exited the room, leaving Shepard to his own thoughts.

At that point in time, the last thing Shepard wanted was to be left alone with his thoughts, but at the same time he knew he had to face them eventually.

That knowledge didn't help him deal with the flood of memories, questions and hypothetical scenarios that rushed to the front of his mind as soon as he let his guard down, however. He lay in the hospital bed, his good eye squeezed shut and his face contorted in pain at the mental anguish he was suffering at the hands of the accusing memories. A

s far as medical science had advanced since the discovery of the Prothean Archive on Mars, there wasn't a pain killer in the galaxy that worked on psychological pain.

Shepard couldn't escape being trapped by his own thoughts as he slowly began to heal and recover, with only the occasional check-up or visit to give him something to distract himself with. In between those times he tried to regain control of his mind, trying to comprehend the twist of fate that had left him alive but the rest of his platoon dead.

Commander Anderson watched the young Lieutenant through the window to his room as his face grimaced in pain, which caused his wounds to flare up, which only served to further increase his pain. Shepard had been kept under observation for two weeks, though he was physically healthy enough to be released. He was being kept under observation for his mental health, due to the incredibly stressful nature of the events of Akuze.

And what they had seen did not bode well.

He was showing many of the classic symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; nightmares, hypervigilance and Survivor's Guilt. Anderson hated seeing soldiers lost to their own minds; he'd seen too many good men and women survive harrowing battles only to lose the fight with the enemy in their own head as the pain and trauma of their experiences overwhelmed them. He didn't want to lose this one too, but in the end it all came down to the Lieutenant and whether he would have the strength and determination to fight.

He took another look over Shepard's service history; it wasn't long, having signed up with the Marines only eighteen months ago, but what was there was impressive:

Before even being admitted, he had a string of recommendations from marines aboard ships he had lived on while his Mother was on duty. He had graduated top of his class from Officer Candidacy and was granted the rank of 1st Lieutenant. He immediately enrolled in the Special Forces or 'N' vocational line and again showed himself to be quite capable, completing the N2 course and graduating third, which earned him an instant N3 commendation, in which he was due to partake in a month's time. He had been in combat twice prior to Akuze; one had been a small skirmish with a raiding party in the Skyllian Verge while the other had been Operation Sonic, a coordinated simultaneous raid on six known pirate bases inside Alliance Space. There were no casualties reported for any of the men under his command and both missions had been highly successful.

In short, Shepard showed some impressive potential, perhaps not N7 potential but certainly a capable and distinguished soldier and officer; but it would all be irrelevant if he couldn't come to terms with his newly diagnosed PTSD.

Silently hoping that this one wouldn't go the same way as so many before him Anderson entered the room once more.

"Good news Lieutenant, the doctors say you're healed up and ready to go…" Anderson began.

"But?" Shepard said, catching the trailing edge of the half statement.

"…But there's a complication. Physically your fine; you should only have some light scarring and your vision shouldn't be affected. Mentally however, they're concerned about you. You've been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and that leaves us in a difficult position. The Alliance can't have marines who might be a liability in combat and PTSD can very easily turn into a liability. Now, the Alliance has a program to rehabilitate soldiers affected by PTSD and it can generally be managed almost completely now days, but they will also allow individuals back into the marines if they can show that they have a hold on their condition. You have a choice before you now Lieutenant, throw in the towel or keep fighting. I'll leave you alone to make your decision, but you'll be released in two days time and I need to know by then." Still watching the Lieutenant, Anderson stood up and placed a data pad containing the information about both decisions on the bedside table.

Shepard had only said one word during that exchange and now he was trying to digest the news of his diagnosis. 'I can't have PTSD' he thought to himself as he scanned the data pad that contained information regarding his diagnosis. As he read though, he saw that the diagnosis was correct. 'Nightmares, yeah, I've definitely been having those. Hypervigilance, check' he thought as he remembered when the nurse had dropped a tray down the other end of the corridor and his heart rate exploded. 'And I can hardly argue against having Survivor's Guilt can I?'

He scanned the information regarding the Alliance funded rehabilitation. In short it involved an honourable discharge, a respectable pension and being set up on a colony world somewhere with regular support for his condition, but he would be unable to rejoin the Alliance. Overall, it sounded pretty good really, but Shepard couldn't help but wonder what he'd do with the rest of his life.

Apparently PTSD can be effectively managed to the point where it is almost a non issue in everyday life, but being a marine was all that Shepard had ever planned for. If he went this route he would have given up on his dream career before he was even twenty!

That left the other option, controlling his condition and getting back to business as quickly as possible. It seemed that a significant number of marines currently in service, particularly in the Special Forces programs, had some sort of traumatic psychological event that had affected them, but they had been accepted back because they showed it could be controlled. It would be a more difficult road, and if he couldn't control it he ran the risk of being dishonourably discharged, getting none of the benefits or help that the rehabilitation provided, but he could keep being a soldier if he succeeded and he could stop things like Akuze happening again.

He made his decision, he was not going to waste this chance that had been provided to him; no one else would go through what he had if it could be helped.

* * *

**[AN: So that's that chapter. **

**There will be two more chapters, each a little over 3000 words. Then I may post the next story in the series which is about 1/4 done and already twice as long as this one. Updates for that one will be much more intermittent once I catch up to where I'm writing as I simply can't guarantee when I'll have the opportunity to write.**

**As always, I hope you enjoyed the story and feedback is greatly appreciated. /AN]**


	9. Introspection

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: This chapter is a little different. It takes place over a 6 month time period, so it will jump around a bit. Each paragraph deals with another little piece of Shepard learning to move past Akuze.**

**I hope you enjoy the chapter. /AN]**

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Residential Wing (December 6, 2177, 1125 hours, Station Time):**

One month into his six month medical leave, Shepard was recovering well. Physically the bruising and cracked ribs he had suffered had healed completely and his left eye was completely functional. The scarring over his face was still quite visible but it was healing well with no sign of infection; the shallow nature of the wound over most of his face meant that the only scarring that should be visible in time would be slight discolouration and unevenness along the brow ridge, lips and chin. Until then however the cut was still quite obvious and it hurt slightly to blink; though it was a pain that had quickly faded into the background.

Mentally he was also recovering well, slowly, but well. His therapy sessions had proven to be surprisingly helpful; apparently the trick to overcoming PTSD was to have a purpose (a reason to keep going and to overcome the condition), and to learn to trust people again (let yourself grow close to others).

The first was easy, he already had his reason. The psychiatrist wasn't quite as convinced, but it was good enough for Shepard. And he had decided to cultivate the Hypervigilance, rather than suppress it; a hyperactive fight-or-flight response would be useful in combat if he could control it. Of course it would make everyday life difficult but he would adapt.

That left trusting people again.

On the surface it didn't sound very difficult; he'd had never been much of an extrovert, but he was hardly introverted or paranoid. But the shrink said that he would be reluctant to get to know people and form relationships again after losing his squad. It sounded like a bunch of hypotheticals and theory more than an actual diagnosis of issues, but Shepard wasn't proud enough to completely dismiss his claims; he could already feel a reluctance to talk to people, but he put it down to still recovering from the effects of Akuze.

Still, he was pleased with his recovery so far, the nightmares were fading slowly, becoming less vivid and less frequent every night, and now he was preparing for a visit by his mother. He hadn't seen her in person since he left for OCS little more than a year ago due to the combined schedules of their separate tours of duty, but they had kept in contact via the extranet, so it would mainly be a relaxed social visit. But there was one thing in particular he wanted to discuss with her; apparently he had been born with biotics but never made aware of it.

And now he wanted to know why.

The 'relaxed social visit', wasn't.

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?! Didn't you think I had a right to know?!" John shouted as he rose from the couch and began to pace angrily.

"What was I supposed to say? 'Hi Johnny how was school? By the way, you're a biotic.'?" She replied sardonically, matching his fire.

"So what, you didn't tell me because it was _inconvenient_ for you?" He stopped pacing and fixed her with an incredulous, icy glare.

"No, I did it to protect you! You know the stories about what happened at BAaT, why it had to be shut down. You know what would have happened if people had found out about it! You would never have had a childhood, never had a life!" She shouted back, her voice awash with a mix of exasperation, compassion and grief.

"So, you did it to protect me? What about all the men and women on Akuze? What about them?! I could have saved them! I could have done something, _anything_!" He shouted before collapsing back into the couch and burying his head in his hands. "I could have done something…" his voice trailed off as he began to sob quietly, blood mixing with the tears as the scar across his face re-opened ever so slightly.

Hannah could do little more then watch in shock as the previously irate young man collapsed and the tension and anger in the room dissipated instantly, replaced with a cold emptiness that radiated from the man that used to be her son. She stood and sat next to him on the couch.

"John, Johnny, what happened to you?"

"Akuze." He replied quietly, not meeting her eyes.

"Tell me what happened. You can trust me, it will be alright."

"… Okay."

And he began to recount what happened, the events that had so burdened his psyche.

It would be the last time he did for nearly a decade.

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Residential Wing (January 15, 2178, 1345 hours, Station Time):**

Shepard glanced furtively at the still unopened package that sat on his kitchen bench with its large tag declaring 'From: Mum' and 'Get Well Soon!'; the slight twist of his neck caused another jolt of pain to race up from the four day old incision at the base of his skull where his new L3 Biotic Amp interface had been wired into his nervous system. The package had arrived three days ago and he still hadn't decided what to do with it. The jaded, cynical part of him wanted to be offended by its very existence and the fact that his mother thought it would be a good idea, while what was left of the kid inside him wanted to tear it open and start setting it up. It wasn't helped by the fact that over the last couple of days his logical side had taken up the cause by constantly coming up with reasons as to why it would be a good idea; hobbies were a good way to take your mind of things, he used to love it when he was growing up, they had been shown to promote a feeling of calm and peace.

And today it had come up with its most compelling reason yet: 'Do you really want to deny what little part of you still feels excitement at things, that still seeks out adventure and emotion?'

He had spent the better part of three hours mulling over that damning thought and he stole another glance in the direction of the box containing a 'Special N7 Edition all-in-one Aquarium' complete with a black lighting hood, N7 sticker and a red and white stripe running down the right hand side.

It was more modern version of the aquarium his parents had brought him for his twelfth birthday which had then moved with him across eight different ships and space stations over the course of five years, over which time his interest, and collection, had grown substantially.

Fish were one of the few pets that were allowed onboard ships as they had minimal food requirements, almost no waste and were unable to escape and wander the vessel; plus advances in artificial environment maintenance meant the already minimal requirements of keeping fish became even smaller. Many of the advancements within the hobby in recent decades had come about by the surge in interest from the other races, particularly the Asari. Apparently the concept had never been realised in the other races; either because their equivalent aquatic life forms were considered to short-lived, in the Asari's case, or because they were viewed as food rather than friends, such as with the Turians and Salarians.

As a result there was a surge of technical advancement in the field courtesy of the Asari, while prices plummeted as the mega corporations such as Elkoss Combine caught on to the new trend. It was now possible to get a completely self contained and automated unit for less than 120 credits and a variety of aquatic organisms from planets across the Galaxy with which to fill it. Looking at the tank, John's mind couldn't help but fill with ideas of what species to put in it and whether to go for a fresh or saline environment. He used to spend hours scaping the aquarium, making sure everything looked just right, at least to his young mind, and then equally long maintaining it from week to week.

Finally deciding that if nothing else it would be more productive than silent brooding with a soda, he dragged himself off the couch and began unpacking the box, discarding the alleged 'instructions' with a sneer; it was unlikely they'd got any more correct in the intervening years.

Three hours later and he found himself searching for the nearest aquarium store on the station and making a checklist of plants, substrate and modifications he would need for his new tank.

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Residential Wing (April 11, 2178, 0950 hours, Station Time):**

"Well this is the most depressing Birthday ever." John said aloud as he scraped his freshly cooked eggs off the pan and, more or less, onto the waiting toast below. Of course, there was no one else in the apartment so the only creatures around to hear him were the denizens of his aquarium.

He had received a message from his mother of course, but she was on patrol at the moment. A couple of well-wishes came from friends he'd had in OCS and from the few individuals he still kept in touch with occasionally from his childhood. Commander Anderson had also sent him a quick message, hoping that he was recovering well.

He had briefly entertained the thought of going out for drinks to celebrate by himself but he knew that was all too dangerous a path to walk down considering his current state; somehow a drunk, slightly depressed, paranoid, biotic, Special Forces trained marine wandering around a space station just didn't seem like a good plan.

So instead he decided to treat this as just another day.

He quickly settled into his daily routine as he consumed his double portion meal, and then went back for seconds, before starting his morning workout. His training regime focused on improving his muscle density and endurance rather than size, focusing heavily on core strength and martial ability. He also had a short routine to strengthen his newly tapped biotic capabilities, which had slowly been increasing in length from thirty seconds to fifteen minutes over the course of two months as he slowly got used to the theory of controlling dark energy with his mind and got better at the practice of it. He had elected to focus on endurance with this as well rather than power and the results were showing. He was now able to keep a focused field around an object for a solid five minutes before tiring, and then repeat that same feat almost immediately. Still, it was a long way from being useful in combat and he didn't have long until he would resume active service. If nothing else, his fitness levels were back to where they were before Akuze and his prolonged hospital stay, possibly even higher now, but he hadn't had the opportunity to go to a firing range as often as he would have liked.

After his usual two hour routine he decided now would be as good a time as any to give his armour a bit of maintenance. His old set from Akuze had been badly damaged in some places so the entire set had been replaced and he wanted to make sure all the modifications and systems were integrated properly. As he pulled the cargo bag that contained his armour out from the closet, he noticed a smaller box sitting off to the side. Remembering what it was, he pulled it out and opened the lid.

Inside sat the battered form of his old helmet, the only piece of his original armour still with him. He gently pulled it out of the box and examined the jagged puncture through the visor and breather attachment where the metal shard had pierced into it while he unconsciously ran a finger down the matching scar on his face. He flipped the helmet upside down saw the still crisp engraving on the jaw line and the carefully machined names of the 23rd Reconnaissance Division running across the top of it.

It was strange to think that he had received this as a present only two years ago, when he was still a wide eyed boy on the verge of becoming a man, still entertaining romantic thoughts of space travel and the glory of battle. A lot had changed in two years. Deciding his new armour could wait, he hefted the helmet and set it upon his workbench. It would never be fit for combat, but he could damn well sure it would be presentable, an ever-present reminder of Akuze and the lessons he had learnt.

* * *

It took three hours to clean the ash, soot, blood and dirt off the helmet and get it polished to a shine, but he had done it.

The crisp, bright polish of the helmet contrasted sharply with the brutal hole gouged through it, but it took pride of place on his desk, held up by the same piece of metal that had punctured it. John stared at it with pride as he sat down at his terminal to check his messages, 'Maybe it won't be such a bad day after all.' He thought wistfully.

The first message to come up put paid to that idea though.

**{ ****From:** Systems Alliance Command, Arcturus Division

Staff Lieutenant John Shepard, you are hereby requested to attend the Memorial Service for the Tragedy of Akuze, set to be held on the 18th of April at the Drescher War Memorial, commencing at 1300 hours. **}**

Shepard didn't even bother to read the rest of the message, he already knew what to expect.

"Definitely the most depressing Birthday ever." He said to fish staring back at him quizzically through the glass.

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Drescher War Memorial (April 18, 2178, 1320 hours, Station Time):**

Two small, simple memorial pillars stood side by side on the raised platform as the attending crowd bowed their heads silently after the names of all the casualties had been read.

The first, a pillar of stone, had the names of the forty nine marines who had lost their lives on Akuze, all now being officially declared KIA.

The second, forged from steel, held the names of the thirty four crew members of the _SSV Gallipoli_, who had all perished in the attack.

Apparently there had been heated debate between the politicians and the brass as to how ornate the memorials should be; many of the political elite wanted them to be far more elaborate than they were. Shepard agreed with the simplicity of the pillars however, it was more… tasteful than some elaborate carving or sculpture.

From his position in the front row of seats, he could clearly read every name on the memorials. Part of him wanted to look away but he wouldn't allow himself to dishonour his platoon in such a way. He could remember seeing the deaths of many of the individuals whose names now resided on the pillars and each one haunted his subconscious.

His nightmares had come back in full force since he had received the message about this memorial and whenever he closed his eyes he could see them; the _Gallipoli_ being torn in two, Jenson coughing up blood as a Thresher's scythe-like arm impaled him, watching Gibson's vitals flat line with the dreadful tone that signalled his death, watching helplessly as Toombs was dragged beneath the surface and feeling his body writhe after his pathetic attempt at using the biotic power he didn't know he'd had. Even now as he closed his eyes in a minute's silence, the images flashed into his head, threatening his capacity for self-control as he fought to suppress them. Mercifully, the period of silence was over quickly and he re-opened his eyes to see the Prime Minister of the Systems Alliance place a wreath in front of the pillars then make her way to the podium for her speech. She was followed by other Human politicians and a number of ambassador's from other races. They all had the same empty words of "heroism" and "duty" and "honour". As each one stood up to speak, John could feel his jaw tighten and fists clench ever so slightly more as he tried to ignore the fact that these politicians were saying what looked best in front of the cameras, that each was met with a cheer and round of applause (the Asari ambassador was given a standing ovation) and that the media was in turn lapping it up. None of them knew what it was like, none of them had fought, none of them had seen friends and comrades die. The only exception to this infuriating monotony was the Turian ambassador.

"I speak for the Turian Hierarchy as we pay our respects and commemorate the losses the Alliance suffered on Akuze. Not twenty paces to my right, there is a memorial for the human lives lost during the First Contact War at our hands and in the crowd there are individuals who fought in that conflict, as I did. But now I seek to honour their memory in extending the condolences of the Turian people to yours for this tragedy and by offering our assistance in ensuring such an event never happens again. I hope that this tragedy may have at least one positive side-effect in helping to heal the wounds of the past, but if nothing else, we will stand with you in your mourning of the brave souls who perished on Akuze."

His speech was met with tepid applause and more than a few icy glares and finally John couldn't take it any longer; a barely audible growl of disgust could be heard from his position as he surveyed the rest of the audience. The one person who had said something of substance, who actually stood a chance at understanding what had actually happened on Akuze, was being written off because of his race and because he hadn't conformed to the standard political lines. Shepard wasn't going to let these people further dishonour the men and women who they were supposed to be commemorating.

He stood up, turned to face the Turian Ambassador as he made his way off the podium and offered a parade perfect salute. The ambassador stopped in surprise as the meaning of the action sunk in. In that time John could hear other chairs slide back ever so slightly as other people stood to do the same. Unwilling to check at the time, he would later discover by watching the vids that he had been joined by a number of Alliance Officers, such as Rear Admiral Steven Hackett and Staff Commander David Anderson, and even some family members of the marines lost on Akuze with a military background. He would also discover that the reaction from the rest of the audience varied between shock, surprise and, on the part of some human politicians and members of the Alliance Brass, outrage. But at the time he just stood there, holding his salute until the Turian Ambassador returned the gesture. No words were spoken and none were needed; they were both soldiers and some things transcended racial barriers.

The ceremony continued, with more speeches from more dignitaries but it was largely the same as before, empty platitudes; but there was a sense of sincerity to the effort if nothing else. Eventually it came time for what John had most been dreading.

"Staff Lieutenant John Shepard, you are hereby presented with the Systems Alliance Purple Star for wounds suffered during the investigation of Akuze and for meritous service at that time." Shepard stood stiffly as the gleaming medal was pinned to his Dress Uniform, sitting next to his medal commemorating his induction into the N vocation and a ribbon for his part in Operation Sonic. When it was done he walked towards the lectern to address the assembled crowd.

Looking out at the crowd and the cameras, all waiting for him to speak, he was now acutely aware of the throbbing scar running across his face and the weight of his new medal hanging off his uniform. The speech that the public relations officer had so carefully prepared and sanitised for the waiting journalists began rolling down the screen before him.

"I am honoured to receive this award in the wake of such a tragic incident and I am greatly upset at the loss of so many brave and honourable marines that gave their lives for the Alliance." He stopped. The voice was his but the words weren't. He wasn't honoured to be receiving this award and he was sure as hell more than 'greatly upset' at the losses on Akuze. He sounded like the politicians, like the people he had been resenting in his head as they spoke. He remembered the words of the Rear Admiral who had given him instructions before the conference, 'Just smile, wave and read your lines and everything will go smoothly.' He had smiled, he had waved, but John didn't think he could read this speech and then look at himself in a mirror again. If they decided he wasn't fit for duty then so be it, but he wasn't going to disrespect his fallen friends with this pre-packaged nonsense.

"I'm sorry, I think I was reading the wrong part, let me begin again." He said as he calmly yanked the wires out from the screen containing the speech.

"You, the families here to mourn your dead son or daughter, wife or husband, you deserve better than that. What I should have said is that I feel… terrible about standing up here and receiving this award. I survived Akuze by random chance, because my wounds didn't kill me for reasons the doctors can't explain. And I feel terrible that I'm the one standing here instead of anyone else who went to that planet. I'm not a hero, nothing I did allowed me to survive that hellhole, but somehow I'm here and they're not. I'm sorry that I'm standing here instead of your loved one; I'm sorry that I couldn't save them, that I wasn't good enough. And I'm more than 'greatly upset by their loss'; I'm gutted. I saw friends die in the most horrible ways, to an enemy we couldn't fight. I wake up night after night, seeing them before they were taken and nothing will ever scrub those images from my mind. All I can do is honour their memories by doing everything in my power to ensure that something like Akuze _never_ happens again, and I hope that you judge it worthy of their memory."

The politicians looked startled, the press was stunned silent and the Brass was in shock. But the families were crying, clapping, saluting; some nodded in respect while others came up to him and clasped his hands in thanks. He knew that whatever the Alliance decided to do with him now was irrelevant; the reaction from the loved ones of his friends and fellow soldiers told him he had found the best way to honour them. When he got back to his seat, he heard Captain Anderson lean over and whisper in his ear.

"You did good son, you did good."

* * *

**[AN:** **And thus ends the second last chapter of this story.**

**I like aquarium keeping as a hobby so I thought it would be a nice change of pace to have a Shepard that actually knew what he was doing with that massively unnecessary tank in his cabin on the SR-2, so I give the aquarium-literate Commander Shepard!**

**Also, in case anyone was wondering, my avatar and the cover for this story and my other ME fics is a drawing based of my description of the helmet as seen in this chapter.**

**As always, feedback is greatly appreciated, and a special thanks to Matthew G Given for his continuous feedback on the story thus far.**

**Thanks for reading, and hopefully you'll come back next week for the final chapter (which I will warn you, will not be a grand dramatic conclusion, it merely sets up for the ME1 sequel to come.) /AN]**


	10. Wraith

**Disclaimer:**I do not own or make any claim to the Mass Effect universe or the characters contained in this story, all of which are owned by BioWare and Electronic Arts. This is simply my interpretation of some events within the game universe.

**[AN: This is the final chapter for 'Come What May', and it focuses on the combat aspect of Shepard's character.**

**Most of the stuff in this chapter are completely made up but I've tried to keep as many details as possible true to cannon according to the Codex.**

**The ending isn't exactly a proper ending but that's because it's meant to lead in to ME1 and the sequel that I will post towards the end of this week titled 'Redemption: Whatever Befalls'**

**I sincerely hope you enjoy the final chapter. /AN]**

* * *

**Arcturus Station, Systems Alliance Marine Corp Head Office (June 17, 2181, 1730 hours, Station Time):**

"Lieutenant Commander John Shepard; graduating the Interplanetary Combatives Academy with Military Vocational Code N7, Operator designation. Graduating with Distinction in Small Unit Combat Tactics, Vehicular Combat, Combat Biotics, Trauma Care, Training and Instruction, Linguistics and Top Honours in the Codename: Vanguard training stream."

Hannah watched as John stood at rigid attention while the N7 Ribbon and patch was attached over the right breast of his dress uniform.

He cut an impressive figure, standing at 6'3" with a thin, lean build. Like most humans, his appearance was the result of a mix of ancestries, in his case Northern European and Eurasian. His black hair was kept tightly cropped with a spiked fringe at the front. His dark hair and blue eyes contrasted sharply with his pale skin but his handsome features were marred somewhat by the diagonal path of a slight but noticeable scar that ran across his face.

There was something else though, there was a tighter set to his jaw, and harder glint to his eyes, a slight but noticeable tensing to his body that was a testament to just how much he had experienced; and it worried her.

He and the other two N7 inductees stood on stage for the next fifteen minutes, not moving a muscle as various speeches were made, before filing off the stage at the conclusion of the ceremony. In four years he had gone from an N2 Staff Lieutenant to an N7 Lieutenant Commander, a rise in rank and skill so rapid as to be nearly unheard of. Still his mission results and training scores spoke for themselves; after Akuze he had gone from being merely above average to exceptional.

But it had come at a price.

He may have been able to control his condition, but he wasn't the same young man Hannah remembered; he was quieter, more withdrawn and much more single-minded. It made him a formidable individual on the battlefield but he always seemed lost when he wasn't in combat or preparing for a mission; like he didn't know what to do when he didn't have a gun in his hands and armour on his back.

"Congratulations John! I'm so proud of you and I know your father would have been too." His mother rushed up to give him a hug, which he reciprocated stiffly with a muffled grunt of pain, his ribs still tender after his last mission.

"Indeed, congratulations Commander, you've earned it." His N7 Training Officer, Captain Anderson said as he gave his hand a warm shake. She knew that the Captain was one of the few individuals John would call a friend, one of the few individuals who had seen something like Akuze and could understand what it felt like. It wasn't surprising that he had come to rely on the older and more experienced marine.

John just stood there stiffly, seemingly unsure of what to say, eventually thanking them briefly before disappearing back into the crowd.

"I worry about him, he's seen so much…" She said quietly as they both watched him depart.

"I know." Came the equally quiet reply.

"He looks better, acts better, but he's not better is he? He's still broken, on the inside." She said, still watching his retreating form.

"Yes," Anderson said quietly before turning to face her, "but he's strong, he can hold it together."

"Do think he'll ever recover fully?" She asked, pleading for an answer.

The Captain dropped his head as he thought before replying. "It happens sometimes. I've seen soldiers turn it around completely; retire, start a family, be happy. But that only happens when they let someone help them."

Hannah picked up on the implication immediately. "And you don't think John will? I just want him to go back to being the boy I raised."

Anderson sighed heavily as he thought about it. "Honestly? I don't know. He's isolated himself, insulated himself from further loss. That armour will break down over time but getting him to accept help, to let someone in… I just don't know. As for getting your boy back… he's seen too much, experienced too much for that to happen; he's a man now. All we can do is wait and see what sought of man he'll be."

* * *

**Systems Alliance Inter-Vocational Enhanced Combat and Tactics Training Exercise (VECTrE), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Earth (May 13, 2182, 0815 hours, BOT):**

When the Alliance Military was formed it was decided that even though it was technically a Navy, the best model to follow would be that of the United States Marine Corp, an integrated fighting force with infantry, armour, aircraft and naval vessels; as opposed to the traditional divide of Army, Navy and Air Force. In many ways this made the entire system far more efficient as it eliminated the need for liaisons between different branches and the inevitable politicking and funding disputes that would arise. Instead, everyone fell under the same command structure.

To differentiate the various skills and specialisation in this homogenised system, the Alliance introduced the Vocational Coding System, allowing soldiers to specialise in their training. Many units were created with specific vocations in mind, such as the Special Forces, while others integrated a variety of complimentary vocations; it was largely dependent on the role the unit was intended to play during open combat. To better facilitate the integration of the various vocations during a hypothetical full-scale conflict, the Alliance also reinvented the War Games of earlier centuries, giving rise to the modern Inter-Vocational Training Exercises, which were run annually.

There are four different exercises, the most well known of which was the Combat and Tactics variant for the infantry vocations, commonly referred to as the VECTrE (pronounced Vector) Games.

The actual Exercise is often broadcasted as a recruitment tool and it rapidly gained a large following in the public sector since they began broadcasting six years ago and not just with humans; the Turian's have made up a notable proportion of viewers not long after they were introduced to it.

Ostensibly, the various IVTE games were designed to 'facilitate coordination and mutual respect between various vocational groups within the Systems Alliance Military', in practice however the real reason was for bragging rights and the settling of grudges. There were set competitions and scenarios, but individual units could challenge each other, which led to some of the most over the top displays of military bravado and posturing ever seen. While it might seem counterintuitive at first, it was perhaps the most effective way to actually promote a good working relationship; rivalry and mutual respect had always proven to be good motivators.

It was at the 2182 VECTrE Games that the 208th Colonial Defence Garrison suffered its most humiliating defeat and the role of combat biotics was revised forever within the Alliance, all due to the big mouth and bigger ego of one young Private.

* * *

"Hey Cruze, did you hear that Shepard guy got _another_ promotion? Yeah, he's up to Staff Commander now and he's barely older than me. Ever since Akuze he's been flying up the ranks and I'm calling bullshit, no way he's that good. Hell, the guy lost his entire squad and the rest of his platoon got taken out by some giant worms, and they're given hero status for it. I heard he doesn't even have a squad anymore, brass probably wouldn't let him have another, and that every mission he does is 'classified' so there's no information about it. I bet the guy's a pussy; no way he could take someone in an actual fight."

"Give it a rest Hudson, you don't know shit. You heard the stories about the guy? I heard he took down two SIU squads,_ by himself._ Heard he even had a run in with the Collectors. Besides, if you're so confident, why don't you challenge him? You know, put your money where your giant mouth is."

"Yeah right, bet the guy wouldn't even show. He hasn't even taken part in any of the games yet."

Unbeknownst to either of the individuals in the conversation, the object of their discussion had been not twenty feet away, and had heard every word.

To say that Shepard was displeased would be a grand understatement. He didn't mind the personal attacks, he'd dealt with them for years and they had long ago stopped bothering him, but insulting his squad, his platoon _and_ degrading the memory of Akuze… he was not going to sit back and let that go. John didn't often participate in the games, and most people weren't brave enough to challenge him, his near legendary status amongst most marines made sure of that, but now he thought it might just prove useful. Waiting until 'Hudson' had left the area, Shepard intercepted the marine called Cruze as he walked along. Seeing the Commander approach him, Cruze stiffened immediately and had to check his automatic reaction to salute as he caught his hand halfway to his head before he even thought about it. "At ease Corporal. I was hoping you could tell me what unit your friend, Hudson I think it was, belongs to?"

"Yes Sir, he's part of the 208, Sir." The Corporal managed to spit out.

"Thank you for your time, Corporal Cruze." The Commander said as he resumed walking, leaving the stunned Corporal in his wake.

'208, the 208th Colonial Defence Garrison, generic defensive force primarily composed of A code riflemen, B code arms masters and F code combat engineers. Time to pay a visit to the Event Marshalls, I think.' Shepard thought to himself with a dark grin as he began to plan.

* * *

Everyone in the auditorium stopped and stared at the match board when the latest challenge was put up, and for good reason. It read:

** 208th Colonial Defence Garrison challenged by Staff Lieutenant John Shepard **

Such a challenge was unheard of, for the simple fact that one man versus an entire platoon was very bad odds. If that wasn't strange enough, the conditions next to it ensured it would grab everyone's attention.

** Challenged to choose battlefield, time and weapons. Challenger to use only non-lethal weapons **

Not only had Shepard ceded any ability to choose the course on which the simulated combat would take place, he also gave the 208 complete control over time and what weapons they could use, while also restricting himself to non-lethal weapons such as stunners and tranquiliser rifles instead of the more popular simulant variants of traditional mass accelerator weapons and explosives.

Within ten minutes, the 208 had decided on the details, setting the match to occur in a mock colonial outpost set on top of a large hill with a variety of defensive positions. The fight would be a typical domination round, which ended when all the members of one side were incapacitated and would take place in six hours. The commentators and military strategists were abuzz at the information and were already speculating on precisely what had caused the Commander to issue such a seemingly insane challenge. News spread and by the time the match was about to begin, viewer numbers had increased by 60%.

* * *

**Systems Alliance Inter-Vocational Enhanced Combat and Tactics Training Exercise (VECTrE), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Earth (May 13, 2182, 1440 hours, BOT):**

In the first twenty minutes of the match, not a single shot had been fired, nor had any sign of conflict actually been seen.

Indeed, Shepard had not made a move to attack the position and the 208 were more than happy to let him come to them. Inevitably, some of the marines began to get bored. They already thought this would be an easy match; one man, no matter how good, couldn't take down a whole platoon of marines. And with fifteen minutes standing around in uncomfortable body armour in the sweltering Brazilian Sun with no sign of their opponent, they started to lose the tense vigilance they had at the beginning.

He could already hear one of the marines, probably Hudson, bragging loudly about how easy this would be. Shepard knew it wouldn't be long until his opening would appear as he silently extended his tranquiliser rifle and adjusted his position in the crook of a tree, 40m from the base of the hill and the first defensive wall.

Tranquiliser rifles delivered a fast acting nerve agent that produced temporary muscle relaxation in the target, leaving them unable to move or make a sound. However, there was no way for the tranq dart to penetrate the ceramic body armour employed by any modern military, including the Alliance.

However, the dart was fired at a velocity low enough so as not to trigger kinetic barriers; so if a target exposed themselves by, for example, taking their helmet off, there would be nothing to stop the dart.

And sure enough, one of the sentries removed his helmet and wiped his brow, sweating profusely in the high humidity and baking Sun. Within minutes, ten more of the marines had done the same, all cradling their helmets or placing them by their feet. And this was exactly the behaviour Shepard had anticipated. One marine grabbed his throat, clutching in confusion at the small dart now embedded there, before he collapsed to the ground. Another marine on the far side of the colony collapsed, with a dart in the back of her neck. The furious shouting of the platoon's commander told John that his plan had worked as the remaining marines scrambled to re-attach their helmets, now too pre-occupied to notice the black armoured form rush across the open field and reach the cover of the hill base, now safely below the line of sight of the sentries at the top.

He immediately set about planting smoke grenades along the walls as he moved up and through the mock colony, avoiding the small defensive positions that had been set up now that the marines were back on guard. He had reached the centre of the colony and had taken refuge inside one of the storage sheds. Shepard readied his weapons, pulled out the remote detonator for the grenades and pushed the button. All at once, fifteen smoke grenades placed at strategic points all around the colony went off and began pouring smoke into the marine's lines of fire. They quickly snapped their weapons up and locked their eyes down the sights, waiting for anything to come through the smoke, as they had been trained to do; and exactly as Shepard had expected.

They were completely prepared for an assault through the smoke, but not for one from behind their own line. The shouted orders quickly identified the platoon leader to Shepard as he calmly walked out of the shed, up to the commander and in one fluid motion disarmed him and jammed his stunner into the unarmoured armpit, causing the man to spasm twice before going limp in his arms. Shepard laid the man down then moved on to his second in command on the other side of the fortifications. A similar fate met him as the N7 Operator emerged from the smoke to his side and disabled him before he could even get out a word.

Ten seconds later one of the marines noticed that his Commander was out cold on the ground and the marines quickly descended into chaos.

They all rushed back into the central courtyard to regroup, not noticing the concealed form watching them as they rushed around. One of the more senior NCO's managed to organise everyone enough to get them to search the nearby buildings.

A sound strategy normally, but once again, Shepard was four steps ahead.

He began eliminating the search teams with flurries of hand to hand assaults, biotics and the use of his stunner; sometimes quietly, sometimes letting them alert the rest of the marines to their fate. Soon the platoon had been reduced to twenty three marines, less than half their original number, and Shepard wasn't done yet. The marines had finally realised he was picking them off individually or in small groups, so they huddled together in the central court yard where they had the best line of sight and the fewest places that he could sneak up on them.

Now it was time for the most ambitious stage of his plan, taking out twenty three marines before they could fight back. Snapping his stunner back into place, he readied his riot shotgun, loaded with a non-lethal rubber ammo block and an under-barrel concussive round launcher, and removed the tranq rifle from his back and placing it on the ground; he wouldn't need it for this. Letting the marines stew in the slowly dissipating smoke that swirled through their position, the Commander gathered a barrier of dark energy around him to provide another layer of protection on top of his armour based kinetic barriers while also mentally running through the motions to produce the 'lift' and 'throw' fields. Now fully ready he rounded the corner of the wall he had been behind and advanced at a sprint towards the marine position.

He must have been a terrifying sight for the remaining marines, the man who had decimated their platoon, wearing jet-black armour with only the iconic N7 stripe breaking the theme, and now wreathed in biotic energy as smoke billowed and swirled in his presence. A handful of marines managed to fire a couple of rounds which were easily deflected by his barriers as Shepard thrust his hand out and five of the marines went spiralling away, slamming into the nearby prefabs and the previously low lying smoke was forced back up, obscuring the scene once again.

After that, the marines didn't stand a chance as the elite warrior descended on their position, ripping through them with practiced ease, dispatching them with blasts from his riot shotgun or with is biotics, leaving none standing. Ten minutes after the first shots had been fired the entire platoon had been wiped out; and they hadn't even managed to collapse the Commander's shields. A loud tone informed everyone that the match was over and paramedics moved in to treat the (minor) injuries Shepard had caused.

* * *

Military strategists spent weeks pouring over the assault. The whole plan had been so unconventional and so successful that it demanded a rethink of both offensive and defensive strategy, particularly the role of biotics in close quarters. The 'Vanguard' training stream that was utilised by some N code individuals and the O code shock troopers was updated to include a section utilising biotics for those with the ability, based almost entirely on actions of Commander John Shepard in this training exercise.

One other, less obvious, impact however was that Commander Shepard was now universally recognised as the most effective and capable soldier the Alliance had ever produced.

* * *

**[AN: And there we are, this story is completed.**

**Keep an eye out for the sequel that should be up soon and I thank you for taking the time to read this story, I hope you have found it at least somewhat interesting. /AN]**


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